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 167 is Southern 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 Southern basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 1
- Bids: 9
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 15.5
- Bids per season: 0.18
- AP Polls: 0
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 5
- Conference Players of the Year: 6
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 9
- Conference tournament titles: 9
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Southern basketball
We’ve got a third straight HBCU in our rankings, with Southern coming it at No. 167!
There are a lot of places to start with the Jaguars, but I’ll go with Bob Love. Playing for Southern in the 1960s, he had an 11-year NBA career marked by three All-Star and two All-NBA selections. He was also a 3x All-Defensive Team member. At Love’s prime, he averaged 21.0 PPG or better for six straight seasons. He is arguably one of the better players not to be in the Hall of Fame.
But Love isn’t all Southern basketball claims. They’ve won nine regular season and conference tournament titles each. They pretty much burst onto the DI scene, going 23-5 in 1977-78. They’d go dancing in 1981 and again in 1985.
But when head coach Ben Jobe showed up in 1986, Southern started to dominate the SWAC. They made the NCAA Tournament in 1987, 1988, 1989, and again in 1993. Jobe went 208-142 in 12 seasons. And in the ’93 campaign, as a 13-seed, they knocked off 4-seed Georgia Tech.
But we’ve got to backtrack to those runs in the 1980s, because it isn’t just Bob Love we need to highlight. While he wasn’t drafted, Avery Johnson STARRED for those Jaguars teams, specifically the ’87 and ’88 tourney teams. He set records, averaging 10.7 assists per game in ’87 and 13.3 the following year. His 399 total assists in 1987-88 are the second-most of all-time in a single season. Johnson went on to have a long NBA career, and later went into coaching and broadcasting.
Lately, Southern’s success has been a little more spread out. They went to the NCAA Tournament in 2006, 2013, and 2016, but haven’t been back since. However, head coach Kevin Johnson seems to be building something, with an overall record of 55-43 in the last three seasons, going 38-16 in conference play.
And much like our previous team in Norfolk State, Southern has virtually always been one of the top teams in their conference. 40 of their 49 seasons in the DI SWAC have been a .500 record or better in conference play. That is the mark of an excellent program and one that is a leader amongst their peers.