The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 243 is Bucknell basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Bucknell basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 2
- Bids: 8
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 11.7
- Bids per season: 0.06
- AP Polls: 1
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 1
- Conference Players of the Year: 10
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 19
- Conference tournament titles: 8
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Bucknell basketball
We go from Queens, who have only been in Division I for four seasons, to Bucknell basketball, with 131 seasons to count.
And how crazy was college basketball in the early days? From 1895-1908, student coaches roamed the sidelines. And they didn’t do a bad job either, with the Bison going 10-0 in 1902-03 and 12-0 in 1907-08.
Success continued for Bucknell up until the 1940s, as the game started to expand and bigger schools began to take over. The Bison had some solid years here and there, but nothing enough to vault them over the blue bloods at the time.
However, in the 1970s, things started to return to their favor. Legendary coach Jim Valvano had his first job at Bucknell from 1972-1975. And once he moved on, Charles Woollum took over and had a great run, going 318-221, leading Bucknell to the NCAA Tournament in 1987 and 1989. He had six 20-win seasons and only had a losing record five times in 19 seasons.
Pat Flannery took over in 1995 and also saw some sustained success, leading the Bison to March Madness in 2005 and 2006. The 2005 team was a 14-seed, but it didn’t stop them from upsetting 3-seed Kansas for their first win in NCAA Tournament history. Most of that team ran it back in ’06, earning a 9-seed and taking down Arkansas, before top-seed Memphis knocked them out in the second round. That 2005-06 team even got ranked as high as 24th in the AP Poll.
After Flannery left, Dave Paulsen continued the tradition of two tournament bids as the next head coach, with his coming in 2011 and 2013. Neither team won a game in March, but his teams went 78-25 from 2010-13, an impressive three-year stretch for the program. Future NBA big man Mike Muscala was there for all of those runs.
Finally, Nathan Davis took over and had another great run of his own, going 72-31 between 2016-19, going to the big dance in 2017 and 2018.
Unfortunately, Davis’s tenure didn’t finish well, and current head coach John Griffin is in the process of trying to build the program back up. But for Bucknell, some humble beginning led to a crazy run of eight NCAA Tournament appearances, with six coming in a 14-year window. Not too shabby for a school in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania!