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Wednesday, September 19, 2007

St. John's to celebrate 100 Years of basketball ...

According to wiki answers on the internet - as of the beginning of the 2007-2008 season, Kentucky is the all-time winningest team in NCAA Division I Men's Basketball with 1,948 victories. The top 5 programs are:
1 - Kentucky - 1,948
2 - North Carolina - 1,914
3 - Kansas - 1,906
4 - Duke - 1,818
5 - St. John's - 1,705

Can you believe it?

I doubled checked the NCAA record book which wasn't updated from the 2006 season and they listed: (with my own addition of adding the 2006-07 wins)

1. Kentucky - 1,926 + 22 = 1,948
2. UNC - 1,883 + 31 = 1,914
3. Kansas - 1,873 + 33 = 1,906
4. Duke - 1,796 + 22 = 1,818
5. Syracuse - 1,680 + 24 = 1,704
6. Temple - 1,656 + 12 = 1,668
7. St. John's - 1,643 + 16 = 1,659

I could not find the discrepancy so I chose to list both 'records.' But, the main point is the fact St. John's is still among the all-time top college basketball programs despite the ax-job that former Coach Mike Jarvis did on the storied program.

UCLA with a 30-win season last year and a #1 ranking this year deserve special mention, if it is only to pay tribute to the great John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) and the one and only Bill Walton, among many others.

UCLA, according to my unofficial W & L's will head into the '07-08 campaign with 1,616 wins but they are undoubtedly the greatest college basketball program in history.

Back to the Johnnie's. The school recently announced that they will pay tribute to their 100 years of men's college basketball history with special symposiums, pictorial tribute books and a special web site to be launched this fall.

I hope they pay tribute by winning more than five games in the BIG EAST on the way to a 20-win season, but that is wishful thinking for a fan that grew up with St. John's basketball in NYC from the 1960s to 70's and 80's (when I graduated) and Big East championships and Final 4 appearances were a realistic goal set each October.

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