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 204 is Eastern Kentucky 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 Eastern Kentucky basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 0
- Bids: 8
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 13.6
- Bids per season: 0.10
- AP Polls: 6
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 4
- Conference Players of the Year: 2
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 9
- Conference tournament titles: 6
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Eastern Kentucky basketball
We head to the Midwest, where Eastern Kentucky takes spot No. 204! The Colonels currently compete in the Atlantic Sun, but most of their success was in the OVC, where they won all six of their conference tournament titles and eight of their nine regular season crowns. The lone one that didn’t happen there was the 2024 regular season championship in the A-Sun.
Lots of head coaches have stayed at EKU for some time and built their own repertoires. Paul McBrayer got there before they went DI, and stayed from 1946 until 1962, winning 191 games. He is still the winningest coach in program history. During McBrayer’s stay, the Colonels won three OVC regular season titles and went to the NCAA Tournament in 1953 and 1959. Jim Baechtold would take over midseason in the 1962-63 slate. He didn’t stay long, but did take EKU dancing in 1965. Baechtold previously starred for the Colonels and played 321 games in a short NBA career.
EKU would rattle through a bunch of different coaches over the next decades, but stayed competitive, punching their ticket to March Madness in 1972 and 1979.
But the Colonels would experience some very rough seasons in the 1990s and into the 2000s. Then, Travis Ford got the job and brought the program back to mid-major relevance. After four straight losing seasons, Ford’s Colonels went 22-9 in year five and finally made it back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 26 years.
While Ford would leave for UMass, Jeff Neubauer took over and stayed for 10 seasons, nearly matching McBrayer’s run. Under Neubauer, the Colonels won one regular season title and went dancing twice. However, they were nearly always competitive, finishing with 20+ wins in half of his seasons.
Currently, AW Hamilton leads the Colonels, and while he hasn’t brought them to play in March Madness, he’s compiled a 133-123 record, good enough to keep EKU afloat in the always-changing landscape of college hoops.
And that has really been what this EKU program is all about – making it to March Madness every so often and keeping itself competitive in the mid-major ranks.