Crum versus Pitino: By the Numbers

After some of the talk over the past few weeks, I decided to pull the records for Denny Crum's last ten years and Rick Pitino's first ten, just to see. Not a lot of surprises, but if you like numbers, you might like looking this over.

I pulled the records from the UofL site, then did a fancy gradient to show winning percentage for that year. (Actually, Excel did the fancy gradient; I just clicked a few commands.)

Then, I added a section on the right for post-season NCAA play. Didn't include the NIT, because I didn't want to do another two conditional formats. :-)

So, here you are. My thoughts after the graphic:

Obviously, Pitino's first ten years have been better than Denny's last ten. However, when you look at NCAA records, the two opening-round losses in the last two years really stand out. The program is obviously doing better, yet CRP has as many first-round losses as CDC had when the program had obviously stalled.

I think that is part of the fan frustration that people are feeling. The trendline is either stable or going slightly up, so what's with the early exits?

Anyway, thought this would be fun to look at. Let's hope we've got a big graph to the right soon!