The USC Trojans are among the nation’s elite in collegiate revenue sports for the 2022-2023 cycle. If you look at performance and results in football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball, USC has done something no other collegiate athletic program has done in this sports cycle. Tennessee and Alabama have also pulled off an impressive feat which differs from USC in one specific detail.
We noted a few weeks ago that USC, Alabama and Tennessee were the three programs to win at least 11 games in college football this past season and get to 20 wins in both men’s and women’s basketball.
Now all three programs have made both the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments.
If you look at the 26 schools which have made both the men’s and women’s editions of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, a few other details emerge:
Purdue made the Big Ten Championship Game in football and won its conference championship in basketball. That’s very impressive.
Alabama won the SEC championship in basketball.
Yet, there’s one thing USC did that Bama and Tennessee did not do.
The Trojans, like Bama and the Vols, won at least 11 football games and made both NCAA Tournaments. They also reached a New Year’s Six bowl, as the Tide and Vols did. The fifth thing USC pulled off was to reach its conference championship game in football. Bama and Tennessee didn’t do that.
However, Bama and Tennessee won their New Year’s Six bowls. USC did not.
Still, it’s clear that when combining football and basketball, USC stands above most other programs in the country — not Alabama and Tennessee, but nearly everyone else.
We congratulate Alabama and Tennessee on their achievements. We will see if USC can become a bigger player in college basketball in the near future.
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