I’m sure this has been done on this board on several occasions, but admittedly I do not visit the basketball board very often. I have had many discussions with friends about which championship is harder to win: basketball or football. Full disclosure, I’m a MUCH bigger football fan and only watch hoops when the tournament starts. I’m convinced, however, that a basketball championship is harder to win than a national championship in football. What say you? Answer the poll and then give your reasoning for why you responded the way you did.
I have a somewhat different view of this. I think basketball is easier to win if you're not a top team. I think football is much easier to win if you are a top team. Obviously, for football, you only have a chance if you're one of the top teams in the nation that year. Literally no chance otherwise, of course. For basketball, you technically have a shot just by making the field of 68. Definitely not the 68th team, for example. But you really could win it all while being maybe the 16th - 20th best team that year. I'd also argue that basketball is more prone to upsets/randomness anyways. Just the nature of the game itself.
Depends on what you mean by “harder.” For brand schools, all schools? The variance of ncaa hoops championships (really any of 10 or more teams have a statistically significant chance of winning and another 10-20 have some small chance. In contrast only 8 football teams have any chance and over the last 15 years maybe 5 have a statistically good chance). Plus hoops only requires a few outlier players to make a team imposing. So I’d say football is harder - bigger teams to manage, huge expenses to run a program, and no open tournament where anything can happen.
If you're Alabama, it's football. If you're Kentucky, basketball. In general, more teams CAN win in basketball. Only a handful even have a chance in football.
The only real difference in difficulty is the system, not the actual sport. If college football had a huge inclusive playoff like basketball, I guarantee you that you’d see some big upsets year in and year out. But, since instead they have a sham of a 4-team popularity contest as their playoff, it’s harder to win. College football’s playoff is a joke and a disgrace. I can’t believe that so many fans think it’s a good system.
I guess I think about it this way. If Alabama or Ohio State has an off day against mid major directional U, they probably still win by a comfortable margin. Conversely, if Kentucky or Duke has that off day against a lesser opponent, well…we saw what happened to Kentucky last night. And it made my day.
Agreed! College basketball is much, much harder to win the national title than college football! That is why what Florida had done in 2006 & 2007 should be held in the highest esteem & regards compared to what all of the other college sports in which the Gators participate had done. Mainly because there are many more participants involved in challenging for the title (68 teams vs only 2/4 teams in college football). There is so much more parity in the NCAA Tourney field; it is not about just the favorite four and all others be damned (like in college football for instance). See how many time that low seeds like the 8-seed (which would be rank 25-32 in college football) had become involved in the Final4 (see below). If you are a #1 seed, the chances of making it to the Final4 is only 1.64/4 (only one to two #1 seeds out of four typically make the Final4; sometimes no #1 seed makes the Final4). In college football, there is no RD32 game to win to make it to the SW16. In college basketball, a team has to beat some pretty good teams in both the SW16 game & E8 games just to make it the Semifinals (Final4) of the NCAA Tournament. There is no guarantee that just because your are one of the top 4 teams of your sport that you will win the ultimate title in your sport! Why you should pick at least two No. 1 seeds for the Final Four in your NCAA tournament bracket ============================ Number of No. 1 seeds to make Final Four Frequency Percentage 4 1 2.78%<---------- All four #1 seeds is a rare occurance (happened only once)! 3 4 11.11% 2 14 38.89% 1 15 41.67% 0 2 5.56%<----- No #1 seeds in Final4 (occured 2x more often than when all 4 #1 seeds had made it) ================================ NOTE: Since 1985 when the ncaa field expanded to 64 teams, a #1 seed had only won the title 64% of the time - in contrast to football, one of the top2/4 will win a title 100% of the time! Seeds 1-8 have won the NCAA title before: 8 seed Villanova (1985) beat #1 Georgetown 7 seed UConn (2014) beat 8 seed Kentucky <--Ugh! 6 seed Kansas (1988) beat 1 seed Oklahoma 5 seed Florida(2000) lost to 1(overall) seed Michigan St 4 seed Arizona(1997) beat 1 Kentucky ------------------------------------------------------------------- 3-seed has won it four times: 3 seed Michigan(1989) beat 3 seed Seton Hall 3 seed Syracuse (2003) beat 2 seed Kansas 3 seed Florida (2006) beat 2 seed UCLA 3 seed UConn (2011) beat 8 seed Butler ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 seed has won it only five times: Louisville(1986) beat 1 seed Duke Duke (1991) beat 3 seed Kansas Kentucky (1998) beat 3 seed Utah UConn (2004) beat 3 seed Georgia Tech Villanova (2016) beat 1 seed North Carolina --------------------------------------------------------------------- The #1 seed has won it the most often, 23 times since 1985, a 64% rate! In 13 other times, the above seeds (#2,#3 - #8) had won it! Teams that have won it as a 1-seed: Indiana(1987), UNLV(1990), Duke(1992), North Carolina(1993), Arkansas(1994), UCLA(1995), Kentucky(1996), UConn(1999), Mich.St(2000), Duke(2001), Maryland(2002), North Carolina(2005), Florida(2007), Kansas(2008),N.Carolina(2009), Duke(2010), Kentucky(2012), Louisville(2013), Duke(2015), N.Carolina(2017), Villanova(2018), Virginia(2019), Baylor(2021). ============================================= Seeds of NCAA Tournament Champions | BracketResearch.com Florida had first won the NCAA title as a #3 seed in 2006; UF had won it as a #1(overall) seed in 2007. UF played for the ncaa title as a #5 seed in 2000. In UF's 1st and last Final4, the gators were a #3 (1994) and a #1 overall (2014)! =================================================== What if basketball had only a Final4 like the current college football playoffs or even just have a #2 vs #1 Finals like the BCS for a number of years. The sport would be so very different - there would be a vast number of teams who would be left off from the competition, not good! Back in the 1940s-1960s, there was essentially an 8-team playoff or a 16-25 team playoff. Often the favorite (i.e #1 seed Wooden's UCLA) would most likely win this whole tournament at a far greater rate than today (i.e, Calipari's Kentucky or Coach K's Duke for instance).
Agree with your last two sentences. Would argue, though, that if you're Alabama, it's a heck of a lot harder to win a title in basketball. Bigger mountain to climb (as you pointed out in sentence three). Look what happened to Bama today. For Kentucky, it's probably harder to win one in football. Did they win one back in the day?
One could argue, though, that football is much more specialized. There is a wider range of body types, skill types, etc. Basketball calls for a range of body types and skills, but the variation is less significant than that in football. I agree that there would be football upsets in a more expansive playoff. Just not sure that winning the football championship is harder than the hoops. Sorry if I misinterpreted that part of your post. Winning the football championship is phenomenally hard. Winning the basketball championship is a minefield and in recent years, it's an every-round potential dogfight. I think of teams like UK in basketball, which have all the riches but have only won what, one championship in Calipari's decade plus? That's not the best argument, though. The more cogent argument is that major title contenders have to win six games against good teams to achieve the dream. Good to great basketball teams lose in the first round - UVA against a 16 seed; UK this year against a team very few have even heard of. Then there's round two, where you have a chance to reach the sweet 16. Any loss eliminates you and you gotta win six . . . against a minefield.
I still think this is in line with my argument. The playoff system is what differentiates the difficulty. Football is harder to get in, but basketball is harder to win once you are in.
It's so much of an improvement over the old purely bowl system. I think 8 to 16 team playoff would be good but at some point you would make the regular season pointless.
I voted football because the playoffs are smaller, right now just 4 teams as opposed to 68. As a result, one close loss in football can keep you out of the playoffs, see Gators 2009.
I'm going basketball because football, IMO is consolidating to fewer and fewer programs with any chance to win a title. While that may be a bit of an oxymoron, it really is not because I think UF is one of about 12 to 15 programs that have a realistic shot to win a title. I think it is obvious that the alumni and the University have demonstrated a renewed commitment to winning a title with the hiring of coach Napier, and his vision to compete with Bama, UGA, Clemson, OSU and the like, this is also true based on the numerous infrastructure investments that are or will be coming on line shortly. So - indeed, basketball
Hard decision, because you can't lose more than 1 game to win a football title. With basketball, you can lose 10+ games and still make a run in the NCAA tournament to a title. I'll still go with basketball being hard due to having to get a bid to the tournament, then having to win 6 games in a single-elimination tournament. All it takes is for one team to have a freakishly good night from 3 to end an excellent team's season.
