Basketball Times Ranks SFA 30th-Best NCAA Division I College Hoops Program
11/6/2017 2:28:00 PM | Men's Basketball
SFA makes the cut for the first time since the rankings began in 1997
Complete Basketball Times Ranking
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The Basketball Times released its list of the top 35 NCAA Division I college basketball programs in America over the last five seasons and checking in at number 30 was Stephen F. Austin. Basketball Times is the official publication of the United States Basketball Writers Association of America (USBWA) and has undertaken an exhaustive comparative analysis of college basketball programs every five years since 1997.
Basketball Times' rankings take six categories into account when judging the NCAA's top Division I college basketball programs including winning percentage, NBA players, federal graduation rage, U.S. News and World Report academic reputation, perceived program cleanliness and head coach ranking. Two of those categories - perceived program cleanliness and head coach rankings - were voted on by a panel of 10 writers from the Basketball Times and the USBWA. Those voters included Nicole Auerbach, Rick Bozich, Ken Davis, Blair Kerkhoff, Angela Lento, Mike Lopresti, Randy McClure, Kevin McNamara, Mike Waters and Dick "Hoops" Weiss.
Netting an overall score of 24.5, SFA ranks above Connecticut (31), Murray State (32), New Mexico (33), San Diego State (34) and Akron (35) in the overall ranking of the top 35 institutions. SFA is also one of only two schools from the state of Texas to be included among the top 35 with Baylor (29) being the other.
The area SFA scored highest in among the six criteria was winning percentage over the last 10 years. In that span, the 'Jacks have won an impressive 75.4-percent of for the eighth-best among the top 35 teams on the list and better than other mid-major top ten teams Wichita State (ninth, 74.4-percent) and Villanova (10th, 74.1-percent).
Other criteria in which SFA ranked among the top 25 were program cleanliness (22nd) and federal graduation rate (25th).
SFA's inclusion on the 2017 list marks the first time that the program has appeared on it since it started getting released in 1997. The 'Jacks open up their 2017-18 campaign on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. CT in Farmville, Va., with a matchup against Big South foe Longwood.
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