NCAA Basketball: Ranking combine men/women programs for 2020-21

Simply winning a national title, in the big picture, does not make a successful NCAA Basketball program. The following schools are ones that are set to have success on the men’s and women’s courts this season.

NCAA.org states that there are over 460,000 student-athletes who participate in the 24 NCAA sponsored sports on a yearly basis. There will be no debating that there is a clear hierarchy within collegiate sports. With the 254 Division I men’s football teams and the 351 Division I men’s NCAA Basketball teams getting top billing. There is no wonder the 21 Divison I fencing teams and 12 Division I women’s rifle teams have difficulty getting a share of the limelight.

When it comes to the basketball court, a program is so much more than just the individual success of the men’s team. Hillary Clinton popularized the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child”.  Just as it takes a community to interact and help a child grow, it takes the cumulative efforts of the men’s and women’s teams on and off the court to create a culture of success.

Ultimately, the success is determined by results on the court with wins and losses, and not in the latest athletes’ graduation rate which was at 88 percent in 2018. Just as Athletic Directors determine the success of their athletics program by taking into account all the sports, in order to determine the best basketball programs to pay attention to during the 2020-21 season, the men’s and women’s teams need to be put on equal footing when it comes to their contribution.