Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College basketball

WikiProject College basketball
Overview Project page talk Participants talk Project category talk Departments Assessment (log) talk Article alerts talk Cleanup listing Unassessed articles (1406) Unknown importance (9776) Recognized content Featured articles (21) Featured lists (17) Good articles (270) Total WPCBB articles (59242)
Resources and Guides Master team table talk Popular pages talk Research sources talk Templates talk Yearbook references talk Yearly team pages format talk
Tools Active editors talk CBB Welcome Template talk Project banner talk Project Userbox talk
Important Articles 2024–25 NCAA men's DI season talk 2024–25 men's rankings talk 2025 men's DI tournament talk 2024–25 NCAA women's DI season talk 2024–25 women's rankings talk 2025 women's DI tournament talk
view • talk • edit • changes

Infobox standardization

It appears about 14 years ago there was an attempt to create a standardization for the infoboxes regarding tournament achievements, and while that seemed to mostly resolve things, there is still one issue prevalent throughout many college basketball pages. There is an inconsistency regarding the round of 32. Most pages include round of 32 appearances, but some do not, and I have been trying to add round of 32 appearances to these remaining pages, but have received pushback from editors who take care of those specific pages. Their pushback offers a logical argument though, as in some cases, including the round of 32 creates a visually "awkward" situation, as some schools have more Sweet 16 appearances than round of 32 due to the true round of 32 having only existed since 1979. With that, I would argue, is counting round of 32 appearances really that necessary? Aside from smaller "Cinderella" schools, making the second round isn't viewed as much of an accomplishment, and instead, the goal for many is to at least make the second weekend of the tournament (Sweet 16). Perhaps the one exemption could be to keep the round of 32 appearances for teams that have only made it that far in their history. Would like to try and find a consensus for standardization among all pages. Red0ctober22 (talk) 03:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Red0ctober22, to clarify, we are talking about Template:Infobox college basketball team, as seen at Duke Blue Devils men's basketball. The fields listing every single year of every round of advancement through the NCAA tourney plus every single year of conference tourney and regular season championships really seems like overkill for an infobox. I can see listing out the individual years for national titles, but everything else should probably just be a simple count. The body of these basketball program articles can included details listed of yearly championships and tourney advancement. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I think the conference regular season and tournament championship years are helpful, especially with programs less successful than Duke. Aside from national championship years, I would also support the inclusion of natty runner-up years and probably even Final Four. I can see an argument being made for schools that have only went as far as, say a couple Sweet Sixteen appearances, to include those as an exception. However, dozens and dozens of NCAA tournament berths look terrible as is. JTtheOG (talk) 18:11, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it's absolutely visually unappealing to look at the "barrage" of years on infoboxes for teams like Duke and Kentucky. I propose this: list the years for every championship, those being conference tournament and regular season championships, national championships, and even Final Four appearances (those are considered regional championships). Then the rest can be just listed in a number as you said, like "NCAA Tournament appearances: 40" or something like that. I understand for smaller schools it may look like nothing, but most smaller schools that have a tournament appearances at least have a conference regular season or conference tournament championship. Obviously this would be a big undertaking and would need the infobox itself to be changed, but it would definitely clear things up.

This would model the NBA infoboxes really (see Philadelphia 76ers), as they only list the years for NBA titles, conference titles, and division titles, it's not noted if you just make the playoffs one year without winning anything. Red0ctober22 (talk) 18:22, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

A minor change to this, instead of having to tweak the infobox coding, I would say that simply removing national runner-up (because that already counts in Final Four), Elite 8, Sweet 16, and Round of 32 appearances could suffice. Then even the best programs like Duke or Kentucky would only really have only one entry with a large number of years (NCAA Tournament appearances). Red0ctober22 (talk) 03:04, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

I think the compromise for WP editors who are averse to prose is to have the tourney details in a table like at Texas Tech Red Raiders basketball § Postseason (and even that could maybe be reduced to final finish result). A slew of years that aren't even linked is just clutter saying "they made it a bunch of times" for boosterism and a type of participation award. Limiting the infobox to regular season conf and conf tourney titles along with national titles and Final Fours seems discriminate. —Bagumba (talk) 03:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

I think that sounds like a good proposal, and most pages already have that table that shows specific tournament details which helps. I will give this some time to see if anyone objects before starting to clean up any infoboxes. Red0ctober22 (talk) 04:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Since there is not any opposition, I will move forward with cleaning up the infoboxes. I will wait though until the NCAA tournament is over because traffic on individual team pages will likely drop off after that.

Moving forward, the standard it seems we have agreed upon is to only include: NCAA Tournament championships (and the two pre-tournament Premo-Poretta and Helms championships, if-applicable), national runner-up, Final Four appearances, conference tournament championships, conference regular season championships, and Conference division championships. Anything else can be removed.

This will also allow for a standardization for these years to be linked, as the NCAA tournament championships and runner-ups can be linked to that year's championship game, the Final Four appearances can be linked to that year's tournament, and the conference tournament championship's can be linked to that year's conference tournament. Red0ctober22 (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

There should be movement to remove the entire parameter from the template page as well. So that in the future, they won't be recreated.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 00:46, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I'd suggest updating the {{Infobox college basketball team}} template itself. Afterwards, cleaning up the individual pages is not urgent as a purely cosmetic change. —Bagumba (talk) 04:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea, although I fear that might mess up the coding for the template on every single page though? Red0ctober22 (talk) 21:49, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Essentially, I would still have to remove, for example "| NCAAsweetsixteen = 2009, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022" from each individual page, correct? Red0ctober22 (talk) 21:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Proposed new navbox

Preface: This proposed new navbox would go beyond the focus of just college basketball and instead extend to all college athletics, but I thought I would post this idea here because A) I've been working on the college basketball pages a lot this winter and that's where I got the idea for this new type of navbox and B) Well, this WikiProject is obviously at its busiest time of year so I figure maybe this is where it'll get the most attention.

I've noticed that while colleges have navigational boxes for their separate athletic programs, e.g., Template:Boston College Eagles men's basketball navbox and Template:Boston College Eagles football navbox, there is no standard way to easily navigate from a college team's season page, (e.g., 2024–25 Boston College Eagles men's basketball team) to season pages for the same college's other sports teams' season pages for the same academic year (e.g., 2024 Boston College Eagles football team, 2024–25 Boston College Eagles women's basketball team, etc.)

I am hereby proposing a new type of navigational template that would appear at the bottom of season pages that would group together all the season pages of all of a school's athletic teams for the same academic year. I think this would be an asset to many pages and for many users and would make jumping from page to page when working on the same school's recent/current athletic exploits that much easier.

I have drafted a very basic example of what this kind of navbox might look like here. Even though it’s a subpage of my own sandbox, feel free to edit it and flesh it out, and also feel free to spread this message to other college sports WikiProjects if you think this would be a good idea.

I'm eager to hear feedback on this. I'm surprised such a navbox hasn't been made standard already, so if there is a particular reason that such navboxes do not exist, please let me know.

Thanks! – RedSoxFan274 _{(talk~contribs)} 12:45, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

RedSoxFan274, my initial thought is that the connection between various sports teams in a single academic year is too tenuous to warrant a navbox. You should post this idea at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football as well, as you will likely get more input there. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm with Jweiss11. Not only are these tenuous connections, but it's an assured guarantee that aside from football, men's bball, and women's bball, no other college sports will receive the same editing treatment and consistent article creations, thus spawning hundreds / thousands of navboxes with perpetual red links. WikiProject College Baseball has done better in recent years but 98% of their work is done by the same half dozen editors. I'm against this proposal. SportsGuy789 (talk) 23:49, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, I would suggest only putting a link in such a navbox if it's not going to be red, I don't like redlinks either, and if there aren't going to be enough links to make a navbox viable, then just don't make a navbox for that year and that college. But some larger schools, ones that have a number of different season pages for a variety of different sports – MBB, WBB, baseball, softball, football, men's soccer, women's soccer, men's ice hockey, women's ice hockey, etc. – those schools, I think, would benefit from this. BUT to each their own. Thanks for the feedback. :) – RedSoxFan274 _{(talk~contribs)} 10:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

How about new articles such as List of Princeton Tigers athletic seasons to match List of Princeton Tigers football seasons. This could list all of the seasons across all sports. Links to dedicated articles when existing; redlinks when they should be created. Non-notable sports/seasons could still be shown in this list without a link, containing cited useful records, scores, or achievements such as national/conference championships. This article could be linked from existing nav boxes. PK-WIKI (talk) 16:32, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose- While I think this has merit it also could be WP:NAVBOXCREEP. I think a See also section is needed though and accomplishes the same goals.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 14:42, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Navbox creep doesn’t bother me that much, especially when the navboxes are contained in their own collapsible "Articles related to" box, but your point is taken. Good point as well about the see also sections. – RedSoxFan274 _{(talk~contribs)} 06:02, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Such a navbox would simply encourage the creation of season articles on non-notable baseball, soccer, and hockey seasons. Cbl62 (talk) 15:56, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

  Not necessarily, as I would highly encourage those making such hypothetical navbox to only include those sports if an article would be warranted. Each navbox could and should be evaluated on a school-by-school basis to see what links should be included; for example my draft box for BC includes articles on their hockey programs, when most Division I schools don't even have hockey programs (which is a pity, really!) – RedSoxFan274 _{(talk~contribs)} 06:04, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:MOSCOLOR violations

Several IPs have been adjusting the colors on team infoboxes and rosters for the 2024-25 season that violates WP:MOSCOLOR and prior consensus on this project. See [1] for an example.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 14:39, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm wondering if the problematic editor User:DragoLink08 has resurfaced, ~13 years later. The editing patterns of these IPs is exactly aligned with him. Editors who have been active on this WikiProject since the late 2000s / early 2010s will remember him. He was (eventually) permanently blocked and banned, as were his many, many sockpuppets used to evade tracking. I thought that nightmare user was in the past... now I think he's back. SportsGuy789 (talk) 15:53, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Southern basketball history

If anybody is interested in the early days of Southern basketball, your help is appreciated for the List of SIAA basketball champions and related articles. Takes a bit more research than football or baseball. The Birmingham AC and the Columbus YMCA were considered the best teams. So there is "collegiate Southern champion" and just "Southern champion" simpliciter which in the early days was one of those two. I am just doing the colleges but those two are also especially important, if anyone wants to do the work. Cake (talk) 14:04, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Franz Wagner (basketball)#Requested move 23 March 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Franz Wagner (basketball)#Requested move 23 March 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 12:36, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Are redshirts who didn't play considered national champions?

Case in point, Florida's Olivier Rioux. He redshirted this year as a true freshman and didn't appear in a game. But he has a championship navbox on his page now. SportsGuy789 (talk) 03:21, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

If it was the Stanley Cup, he wouldn't have his name etched onto the trophy. Of course, that's not the standard. Just because he was on scholarship there, I don't think that's enough for him to have a claim at being a member of a national championship team. Had he played the first three games of the season, gotten injured and taken a medical redshirt, I would probably feel differently. Without appearing in a game, he was basically a practice player who travelled with the team. Taxman1913 (talk) 06:20, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

No, we have never done this and there are many examples over time where this applies. For example, Seth Curry was a redshirt on the 2010 Duke team. Readers are using these navboxes years later to remember who was on the team that won. Rioux didn’t play a minute this season for the Gators. Rikster2 (talk) 16:48, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

He was still on the team. Reliable sources show him cutting down the nets after winning the national championship with his team. Clearly a member of the national championship team, deserving any such navbox honors. PK-WIKI (talk) 17:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that's definitive. The team manager may have been given a turn with the scissors as well. Simply cutting down the nets is not, by itself, a basis for someone to be considered a national champion. I'm sure Rioux worked very hard in practice this season, but it is difficult to call him a national championship player when he did not play. Taxman1913 (talk) 18:10, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Reliable sources show him cutting down the nets after winning the national championship with his team. Using a photo of someone cutting down nets to call him/her a "national champion" on Wikipedia is a form of WP:OR. To call a player a national champion, there must be reliable sources directly calling him/her a national champion. Per WP:RSPSI, present-day SI isn't clearly a reliable source anyway. Left guide (talk) 19:19, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

USA Today then? Olivier Rioux is 7-foot-9, but because he was a freshman redshirt, he didn't play for the Florida Gators this season. Still, he's a national champion like the rest of his team after the March Madness win over Houston on Monday. PK-WIKI (talk) 20:37, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd say that counts per WP:USATODAY and the direct verification shown. Left guide (talk) 20:54, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

It does not seem the USA Today article's context indicates the journalist intented to make a definitive, authoritative statement about Rioux's status as a national champion. It is doubtful that the article would have been written had Rioux not cut the net without the aid of a ladder. That seems to be what the article is truly about. While USA Today is a reliable source, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Since Rioux is the first in my memory to have cut the net without a ladder, it's understandable that we haven't seen articles in the past about redshirted players in which they are proclaimed national champions. Despite the USA Today article, I'm quite sure SRCBB is not going to put "2025 national champion" on Rioux's profile page. If Rioux is to be added back to the navbox, (redshirted) should appear next to his name. The inconsistency thereby created would necessitate reviewing other naxboxes for players like Seth Curry who might have been missed... which will create a knock-on problem, since there is no WP:RS that will confirm Seth Curry was a national champion in 2010. The inability to achieve consistency is a very good reason to leave Rioux out of the navbox. That, coupled with the context of the cited source, makes this a clear call in my view. Taxman1913 (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Cutting down nets is an arbitrary thing, teams can have anyone help cut down the nets. I would equate it to getting an NBA championship ring. Teams can give anyone a ring but if a player is traded away mid season and is not with the team during the playoffs, the NBA doesn’t count them as a champ even if the team decides to give them a ring. Rioux was not an active member of the team this year. If he had played even one regular season game That would be different. But he didn’t and, again, we have been very consistent with this through the years. And, no, some random USA Today reporter isn’t the determinant factor here. Rikster2 (talk) 22:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm really not seeing ANY reason to not list him as a national champion. If other similar players haven't been given the same honor on Wikipedia, we should correct that omission.

The Florida Gators have him on the roster of their national championship team, marked as a "Freshman" and in the same table as all of the starters and reserve players on the team. He suited up for the national championship game. As far as I am aware there is no official/disqualifying status for "redshirt" freshman, so he assumedly could have and would have gone into the national championship game at a moment's notice had his coach called for that substitution due to injury or a set play that required Rioux's height.

A reliable source, national newspaper USA Today, directly says that he is a national champion along with the rest of his team despite not playing any minutes.

How far are we going to go with this? He's a freshman on the national championship team. He cut down the national championship nets along with his team. He'll presumably get a national championship ring. He'll shake the president's hand at the white house. He'll be honored at the on-campus national championship parade and hoist the national championship trophy at the field house. He'll be in the national championship roster photo along with the starters and other players on the team.

Denying him "national champion" status because you think he doesn't deserve it is WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH.

PK-WIKI (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

he did not play a game for the team. Not a minute. That’s not original research. His college debut has not occurred, that is also in that SI piece you linked. Wikipedia is about putting objective standards for ambiguous situations. It would be misleading to future readers to include him. The natural response (if he is remembered then) would be “I didn’t remember he played for that team.” That’s because he didn’t. Rikster2 (talk) 22:52, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

The connection that "not playing a game for the team" equals "not a national champion" is original research. Left guide (talk) 23:06, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

he was not eligible to play a minute for the team. And as Bagumba said, we have similar situations with past players not being called national champs by independent sources, so we should follow that in this case. Rikster2 (talk) 23:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

How many other members of the team didn't play a single minute? We don't know because that stat isn't tracked as something that matters. They're members of the team or they aren't. This isn't an ambiguous situation.

So if a second-string Quarterback is part of the 53-man roster, but ends up not playing any snaps on the way to the Super Bowl, he's not a Super Bowl champion? But the third-string QB is because he took 2 snaps in garbage time? Pure WP:OR. PK-WIKI (talk) 23:09, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Of course we can track who didn’t play a single minute on the season (which is what we are talking about, not just the tourney) - it would be in the season stats (or rather missing from them ). But Rioux was not even eligible all season for coach Golden, because he was a redshirt - that’s the issue. By the way, “For The Win” (where your link comes from) is owned by USA Today, but it is not the newspaper’s sports section. It is a social media property. I would argue it is not covered under USA Today as a reliable source. Rikster2 (talk) 23:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Since the reliability appears to have been challenged, I've raised that matter at WP:RSN#For The Win (USA Today) to seek wider community input. Left guide (talk) 00:05, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

A redshirt freshman is a player who is an active, eligible, member of the team who can come in to play at any time.

After the season, if they don't play in any games (or less than X minutes) they can lobby the NCAA for a redshirt waiver that gives them another year of eligibility. Redshirt seasons can be "burned" by the freshman playing in a game.

This is confirmed by the New York Times in last year's tournament:

For seven minutes of playing time, he burned his medical redshirt

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5347945/2024/03/20/longwood-ncaa-tournament-trey-hicks/

But when he checked into the Big South Championship game against UNC Asheville four minutes into the second half, on what could be the Lancers’ next-to-last game of the season (as a 16-seed, they’ll play No. 1 seed Houston in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday), Hicks burned his shot at that redshirt season. An improbable confluence of circumstances put Longwood in a situation to need Hicks; but it was Hicks who answered the call. “I told Coach, if you need me, you got me,’’ Hicks says. “For a program that has done so much for me, that’s the least I could do.”

Olivier Rioux was an active member of the national championship team. He could have played at any time in the national championship game, just as Trey Hicks did last year.

PK-WIKI (talk) PK-WIKI (talk) 23:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Except, he wasn't. He could not play a single minute because he was declared a redshirt prior to the season. He was not active, nor eligible. Ball boys don't get official championships. He could not "have played at any time in the national championship game." Game, set, match. SportsGuy789 (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Post a reliable source citation you can be "declared a redshirt prior to the season" in college basketball, and that this would make him ineligible to play in subsequent games.

You say that Rioux was "not active, nor eligible" on the season, yet the Associated Press quotes his coach after the fourth game of the season saying:

“Honestly, it’s put him in a tough situation. He’s sitting over there at the end of games and everybody’s yelling at him and trying to get him out there. They just hadn’t understood that that was our potential plan for him. “So that’s where we’re at at this moment. I’m not saying that’s 100% going to be the plan. We’ll continue to talk to him and see if he changes what he wants to do. But as of right now, that’s the plan that we’re going to have with him as we move forward.”

Rioux was an active, eligible freshman player on the Florida gators national championship team that could have played at any time in any game, including in the national championship game. PK-WIKI (talk) 00:05, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Not how it works, he still has four years of eligibility and Golden announced early on he was redshirting. The season is over, his status as a redshirt who did not play a game can not be disputed. Rikster2 (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Curry's SRCBB profile does not list "NCAA champion".[2]. Are there other sources that call them champions? —Bagumba (talk) 17:31, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, and the same site says Walter Clayton Jr. is a national champion, but Rioux is not. That’s because he was not an eligible member of the team this season. Rikster2 (talk) 23:21, 8 April 2025 (UTC)