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 176 is Northeastern 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 Northeastern basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 3
- Bids: 9
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 14.1
- Bids per season: 0.14
- AP Polls: 1
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 4
- Conference Players of the Year: 7
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 14
- Conference tournament titles: 9
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Northeastern basketball
Next up at No. 176 is a program whose heyday came under a Hall of Fame coach. We all know Jim Calhoun for what he did with UConn, but the legendary coach first had success with Northeastern. The Huskies were a struggling program playing as an Independent when Calhoun got there in 1972. However, he quickly got them to be a mid-major team to watch, especially in Northeast hoops. After somewhat of a humble yet, Calhoun took Northeastern basketball to the NCAA Tournament in 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1986.
As an 11-seed, they took down 6-seed Fresno State in the ’81 tourney and 6-seed St. Joe’s the following year. In that ’82 tournament, they nearly upset 3-seed Villanova in the second round. Perry Moss was the star player on both of those squads.
But the 1983-84 team might have been Calhoun’s best work at Northeastern. They went 27-5 and a perfect 14-0 in the ECACN. Mark Halsel averaged 21.0 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, while Reggie Lewis put up 17.8 PPG and 6.2 RPG. While they beat 11-seed LIU in a play-in game, they fell short by a point to 6-seed VCU in the next round.
Calhoun would stay two more years with two more tourney bids before going to UConn. But year one with head coach Karl Fogel was also a great season for the Huskies, who went 27-7 and made it back to March Madness. Fogel’s term wasn’t nearly as good as Calhoun’s, but it did include another bid in 1991.
Since then, Northeastern has only made it back to the big dance twice, both under Bill Coen in 2015 and 2019. While he hasn’t been perfect, including a 7-24 record last season, Coen has compiled a 306-323 record in 20 seasons, with four regular season titles to his name. It might not be Calhoun’s Northeastern, but it’s a Huskies program that continues to have good seasons often.
Northeastern has had many notable players, but two of them come to mind. Recently, Jordan Roland was a star, averaging over 20 PPG in his senior season. But the intriguing name would be JJ Barea, who was the 2006 CAA Player of the Year, and while he went undrafted, he went on to have a very good NBA career. Somehow, he never led the Hukies to the big dance, despite scoring 2,290 career points (T-219th all-time) and dishing out 721 assists (T-121st all-time).
So, it’s a program with one face above the rest, but one that, without the Calhoun seasons, has still stayed competitive and, here and there, has produced good products.