Most Underrated Hoops Program?

ESPN has released a list of the top ten most underrated NCAA basketball programs of the past ten years. Topping the list is the Wisconsin Badgers. Though the Badgers play in a major conference and have one of the biggest athletic budgets of any of the teams on the list, they consistently seem to be “under appreciated.”

In order to determine the strength of a team in the “underrated” column, you have to gauge a team’s general perception. That’s not so easy to do. For example, I come from Northern California and I like Pac Ten schools, so Stanford is big where I’m from and I’m never surprised when they do well. Yet they made No. 4 on the list. There is no objective stat on how much a team is followed by the mainstream media, just a… feeling. For example, you could never find Duke on this list, because even if they won ten NCAA Tournaments in a row in the past ten years, they still wouldn’t have earned the hype they always get.

But if you want NCAA basketball tickets to a good underdog, underrated team, I like getting ones with smaller school enrollments and meager budgets. StubHub.com has plenty of tickets for those Xaviers, Southern Illinoises and Butlerses that we all root for when they face the big boys in the tourney.

Permalink - Posted in General on May 9, 2007 - Post a comment