Good stuff here from Matt Norlander of CBS:

 

Fun quiz.

 

There are 11 schools that have made the NCAA Tournament at least 20 times in the past 25 years.

 

Can you name them?

 

Yep, obviously the usual suspects -- Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA -- are on the list. Those are all blue bloods. (Indiana, the sixth traditional blue blood, is not, falling just one Dance ticket shy.) But OK, that's five out of the 11. Who else are you thinking should be in this group? Yes, Louisville's part of the club, and you can't think March without thinking Tom Izzo, so you're right, Michigan State's there as well.

 

Just four left. So think. What other programs have been consistently good over the past two and a half decades? Ah! Texas made the tournament practically every season under Rick Barnes' long tenure, and Wisconsin's a top-four team in the Big Ten every damn year. Both are correct answers. Any other modern power you're forgetting about? Certainly is. Remember: Arizona's been a top-10 program since the mid-1990s. The Wildcats have played in 23 of the past 25 NCAA Tournaments.

 

That's 10 of the 11.

 

And I'm thinking if you hadn't seen this article, if I spotted you those first 10 programs and gave you 15 guesses to pick the 11th, you wouldn't have guessed Cincinnati. But it's true. Cincy has punched a ticket 20 times since 1992, and it's going to be 21 for the past 26 come March, because the 20-2, 14th-ranked Bearcats are a top-25 team yet again. You'd be hard-pressed to give me five coaches more underappreciated than Mick Cronin, who's now in his 11th season with the Bearcats.

 

Cincinnati came back from a double-digit second-half deficit at Tulsa on Wednesday night. The Bearcats are one of a few remaining teams who've yet to lose a league game. Cronin's quietly succeeding yet again. For the second time in four seasons, Cincinnati's won 20 of its first 22 games. The Bearcats' 13-game winning streak is among the longest in the sport. There were some who believed Cronin wouldn't make it four years at UC, after he took the job following his Murray State stint.

 

Yet this year's Cincinnati team should wind up as the best group Cronin's ever coached, and that should be proven a little over a month from now with the school's highest NCAA Tournament bid since he arrived.

 

Here's my thought: Why isn't Cincinnati considered a top-20 program on a national level? Seems pretty definitive to me that the Bearcats have been established, both historically and in the modern era, to be just that. But you probably don't think of Cincy that way, just like a lot of other people don't, but you're wrong.

 

You think Cincinnati, maybe you think "tough" or maybe you think "Bob Huggins coached there and I think he got fired" or maybe you think "Oscar Robertson and Kenyon Martin played there, but I can't name anyone else."

 

Truth is, Cincinnati is one of just 15 programs with multiple national college basketball championships. Cincinnati ranks top 20 in all-time NCAA Tournament bids, with 30 (Kentucky's 55 is tops). The school has 1,737 wins to its name -- No. 17 on the all-time rankings. You combine those achievements with being on the short list of NCAA Tournament regulars since the early 1990s, and that's an open-and-shut case for the program's noble standing in college hoops. I don't think there's a debate, yet how could we even debate it if it's hardly acknowledged to begin with?

 

To get an appreciation of how hard it is to make the NCAA Tournament, consider this: Cincinnati has gone to the Big Dance six (soon to be seven) years in a row. Only five of the other 350 other Division I teams (Kansas, Duke, Michigan State, Gonzaga and Wisconsin) own longer streaks. Michigan State (13-9) is in jeopardy of having its run end this season.

 

So why isn't Cincy considered a national power?

 

Rest of article below:

The best program you don't hear about, Cincinnati has to make a run in March

Nice article. Going to be interesting over the next couple of years to see if Mick can keep the momentum that UC currently has. He has changed his philosophy a bit and started recruiting some kids that can score the ball. Very exciting things happening in Clifton.

Nice article. Going to be interesting over the next couple of years to see if Mick can keep the momentum that UC currently has. He has changed his philosophy a bit and started recruiting some kids that can score the ball. Very exciting things happening in Clifton.

 

Return a top 10-15 team next year led by Cumberland, Evans, Clark and Washington, as well as role players Scott, Brooks, and Jenifer. I assume Sacred Heart transfer Cane Broome takes over for Troy at the 1.

 

2018 recruiting class is the important one as Mick will have to replace Clark and Washington, and maybe Evans if he decides to try to go pro early.

Nice article. Going to be interesting over the next couple of years to see if Mick can keep the momentum that UC currently has. He has changed his philosophy a bit and started recruiting some kids that can score the ball. Very exciting things happening in Clifton.

 

Going to be a totally different style next year as Broome can flat out fly end to end. Have watched him terrorize a top 10 defense every day in practice all season. He'll turn it over more than Caupain, but they will also score in transition a ton more with Broome pushing the tempo...

The end of the article asks "so why isn't Cincinnati considered a national power"...The reason is that the Cats recently have been like the Bengals...get to the playoffs but do not do well at all in the playoffs. They have been to the sweet sixteen once since 2001. I hope and think this year will be different. Nice article though...the Cats are in some nice company when it comes to getting into March Madness...