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 117 is Navy 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 Navy basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 2
- Sweet 16s: 3
- NCAA wins: 8
- Bids: 11
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 12.7
- Bids per season: 0.09
- AP Polls: 23
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 8
- NBA players drafted & played: 1
- Conference Players of the Year: 5
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 10
- Conference tournament titles: 6
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 1
Overall scoop on Navy basketball
When talking about the service schools, no one comes close to Navy basketball. They literally had a player nicknamed “The Admiral,” in David Robinson, who is one of the greatest players in hoops history.
Robinson was a 2x Consensus All-American and was the National POY in his senior season, averaging 28.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 4.5 blocks per game. While Navy had plenty of All-Americans in the early 1900s, having one in the mid-1980s, once the game grew into what it is today, is a whole other story. And Robinson led them to three NCAA Tournaments, going to the round of 32 in 1985, an Elite 8 run in 1986, and, unfortunately, a first round loss to 9-seed Michigan in 1987. Navy wasn’t just a service school in the ’80s. They were a basketball school thanks to Robinson.
But Navy has had other great years. As I mentioned before, they were on pace with the Ivy League schools in the early 1900s, even being named National Champions in 1913, going a perfect 9-0. In fact, the Midshipmen had its first basketball team in 1907-08 and didn’t have a losing season until 1939-40. They were one of the original blue bloods.
John Wilson was the first great head coach in program history, going 206-94 from 1926-46. But it was Ben Carnevale, who, from 1946-66, led them to the NCAA Tournament five times. That included Elite 8s in 1947 and 1954 and a Sweet 16 in 1959.
Obviously, the Robinson era took the program to unheard of waters, but they also had a solid run about a decade later, going dancing in 1994, 1997, and 1998. Head coach Don DeVoe went 184-161 from 1992 to 2004, keeping them relevant as a mid-major.
The program had some bad seasons under Billy Lange, but Ed DeChellis took over in 2011 and brought back some sort of relevance, going 15-3 in the shortened COVID season in 2020-21. They won the Patriot League regular season that year.
This past season, Jon Perry took over a program with so many players returning, and Navy wound up winning the Patriot League title again. While they fell short of winning the conference tournament, they finished at 26-8, their most wins in a season since Robinson’s senior year of 1986-87.
Obviously, Navy is up against a tough challenge as a school that only puts Naval Academy students on the court. But they’ve cracked the code more than Army and Air Force have to be able to put winning seasons out there.