Everyone loves to debate which college basketball schools should be considered the most “successful”. But how do you define success? Is the NCAA Tournament the sole measuring stick available to determine bragging rights? Do conference titles matter? Should conference tournament titles count? Then, of course, there’s the time period you’re measuring. Success is measured by accomplishment within a given time frame.

As you can see, there are many ways to go about creating a list like this. We decided to start a project, using just NCAA Tournament data, with the goal of determining the most successful college basketball programs since 2000. In honor of the recent completion of the 2013 NCAA Tournament, we decided to score each school based on how most bracket pools are tabulated:

Round of 64 loss = 0 points

Round of 32 loss = 1 point

Sweet 16 loss = 2 points

Elite Eight loss = 4 points

Final Four loss = 8 points

Championship Game loss = 12 points

National Champions = 16 points

So theoretically, if you are the type of person who picks the same team to win the NCAA Tournament every year, you might want to take a look at No. 1 on this list – because that team has (since 2000) statistically performed better than any other over time.

Without further ado, here are the schools ranked 25-11. The top 10 start on the next slide.

24. Oklahoma State (tie) – 16 Points

24. Pittsburgh (tie) – 16 Points

24. Xavier (tie) – 16 Points

24. Gonzaga (tie) – 16 Points

22. Villanova (tie) – 17 Points

22. West Virginia (tie) – 17 Points

21. Marquette – 18 Points

19. Indiana (tie) – 19 Points

19. Oklahoma (tie) – 19 Points

16. Texas (tie) – 24 Points

16. Wisconsin (tie) – 24 Points

16. Memphis (tie) – 24 Points

15. Illinois – 25 Points

12. Maryland (tie) – 31 Points

12. Butler (tie) – 31 Points

12. Ohio State (tie) – 31 Points

11. Arizona – 32 Points

Next: >> Schools Ranked 10-6

