Posted by Lindsey on Thu, 02/24/2011 - 14:09

It's rather remarkable how dreadful our state's college basketball programs are doing this year. Thanks to Illinois' loss at Ohio State on Tuesday night, EVERY SINGLE TEAM has a losing record in conference play. Check it out through Wednesday's games: Illinois 7-8 (tied for fifth in Big Ten) Northwestern 6-9 (tied for eighth in Big Ten) Loyola 6-10 (eighth in Horizon) Chicago State 3-6 (fifth in Great West) SIU 5-12 (eighth in Missouri Valley) EIU 4-12 (ninth in Ohio Valley) ISU 4-13 (ninth in Missouri Valley) NIU 3-10 (11th in Mid-American) Bradley 3-14 (last in Missouri Valley) Western Illinois 2-14 (ninth in Summit) UIC 2-15 (last in Horizon) DePaul 1-14 (last in Big East) Isn't that awesome? A clean sweep of lackluster play. Three of those programs have first-year coaches, so they're exempt. Everyone else is either on the hot seat...or the hotter seat. But I had to wonder: Where does Illinois rank in overall winning percentage among our 49 states and District of Columbia (Alaska doesn't have a Div. I hoops squad)? As it turns out, it required close to four hours to crunch the numbers and put this list together. Oops. Wasn't supposed to take that long. Worse yet, the numbers confirmed my worst fears. The results are pretty sorry. The number in parentheses is the numbers of Div. I schools in that state. And I apologize for the misaligned columns, but our blog formatting is rudimentary. I tried to add spacing to make things easier to read, but to no avail. Kansas (3) 68-17 .800 Vermont (1) 22-6 .786 West Virginia (2) 36-18 .667 Kentucky (6) 110-57 .659 Utah (6) 107-57 .652 Indiana (10) 177-104 .630 Minnesota (1) 17-10 .630 Arizona (3) 49-30 .620 Nebraska (2) 35-22 .614 Ohio (13) 219-145 .602 Hawaii (1) 15-10 .600 Tennessee (12) 204-137 .598 Wisconsin (4) 66-45 .595 Nevada (2) 32-22 .593 Connecticut (7) 110-76 .591 Virginia (14) 225-166 .575 Colorado (5) 77-57 .575 South Dakota (2) 31-23 .574 Missouri (5) 79-60 .568 Penn. (14) 215-164 .567 D.C. (4) 62-48 .564 Montana (2) 30-24 .556 New Mexico (2) 31-25 .554 Washington (5) 73-62 .541 Maine (1) 15-13 .536 Oklahoma (4) 58-52 .527 S. Carolina (12) 177-161 .524 Mass. (6) 84-77 .522 Florida (13) 184-173 .515 Michigan (7) 101-95 .515 Oregon (4) 54-51 .514 Texas (21) 286-277 .508 Mississippi (6) 80-80 .500 California (24) 319-324 .496 New Jersey (8) 107-109 .495 Idaho (3) 39-40 .494 Iowa (4) 56-58 .491 North Dakota (2) 26-27 .491 N. Carolina (18) 239-257 .482 Rhode Island (4) 50-57 .467 New York (22) 279-320 .466 Alabama (9) 105-133 .441 Arkansas (5) 58-79 .423 Delaware (2) 22-33 .400 Maryland (9) 96-152 .387 Georgia (7) 75-119 .387 Louisiana (12) 123-198 .383 Wyoming (1) 10-17 .370 Illinois (13) 132-229 .366 New Hampshire (2) 17-35 .327 How bad of a hoops-playing state must you be to trail Louisiana? According to Pomeroy, that state has the nation's least-efficient team (Southern University, 4-23) and the nation's only winless team (Centenary, 0-28). LW