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 91 is Seattle 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 Seattle basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 1
- Final Fours: 1
- Elite Eights: 1
- Sweet 16s: 5
- NCAA wins: 10
- Bids: 11
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 17.0
- Bids per season: 0.24
- AP Polls: 65
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 4
- NBA players drafted & played: 9
- Conference Players of the Year: 1
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 1
- Conference tournament titles: 0
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 1
Overall scoop on Seattle basketball
You may not think of Seattle as being a dominant mid-major, but the Redhawks definitely had their stretch of success. The program has made 11 NCAA Tournaments in 46 seasons, with all of them coming between 1953 and 1969. Multiple head coaches were there for the runs – Albert Brightman, John Castellani, Vincent Cazzetta, Bob Boyd, Lionel Purcell, and Morris Buckwalter all chipped in for the dynasty that was Seattle basketball.
Their best success came early on, with Sweet 16s in 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958, and 1964. But it was the 1958 season when the Redhawks went even further, falling in the National Championship game to Kentucky. It wasn’t a fluke, either. The star of the team was future Hall of Fame forward Elgin Baylor, who averaged 32.5 points and 19.3 rebounds per game as a senior that season.
Interestingly, Seattle’s dominant play really faded once they joined a conference, playing in the old West Coast Athletic Conference, which turned into the WCC as we know it today. In nine seasons, they only had three winning records, eventually going back down to the NAIA due to worse athletic performance and financial reasons.
Seattle re-joined DI in 2009, and obviously hasn’t been back to the national level they once were. But they have shown promise as a mid-major team, with 20-win seasons in four of their last five. Head coach Chris Victor is one of the most underrated up-and-coming coaches and clearly has the Redhawks in play to be a top-tier team, back in the WCC, for years to come. In 2024, that was shown at the mid-major level, as the Redhawks won the CBI.
Obviously, they are a long way off from reaching the status of some mid-majors like Gonzaga and Dayton. But Seattle has started to show some consistency, and could be a program to keep an eye on. But for our rankings, their history is as good as any team ever, with a very dominant run for the better part of nearly two decades.