How does Ohio State rate vs the historical basketball powers?

A little while ago I ranked the top football programs to see if I could identify the "football powerhouses".  It was a lot easier than I figured since stadium size and total wins seemed to have a good correlation and since 80% of the national champions come from this group, it is pretty hard to argue with the list.  This is much harder thing to do with basketball as one individual can change a programs fortunes for a few years only to see it fade into mediocrity once they leave.  A good example of this is Houston during the Akeem/Drexler years and San Francisco during the Bill Russell days.  This is made even tougher as coaches can have the same effect like what has happened at Indiana since Bobby Knight left or UCLA since John Wooden.

Powerhouses should transcend individuals but since there isn't a simple way to do it like in football I decided to instead see what programs have done the best over the last 60 years in the NCAA tournament::

Keep in mind this info is from before this year's tournament as I wanted to see how Ohio State ranked before this year's success. In addition, there is no doubt this graphic includes too many schools but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anyone.  The methodology was pretty simple -- I took all the schools that made at least 3 NCAA Final Fours (plus a few I figured should be on the list) and then listed their number of Championships, Final Fours, Sweet 16s, and tournament appearances for the last 60 years.  Then I created a final column which is simply giving every school 1 pt for an appearance, 2 points for the Sweet 16, 3 points for a Final Four, and 4 points for a championships.  That means if a school won a championship they'd get 10 points that season (1+2+3+4).  It is no doubt arbitrary but it works for my purposes.

Powerhouses
As you can see from the list 5 schools separate themselves on the top - UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, and Kansas.  I don't think you'll get much argument from many that 4 of these are powers every season.  The issue is UCLA.  They've had their ups and downs but most of their rank is due to their success 40 years ago.  They really belong in a third tier group I'll discuss below as they've rarely been dominant in the last 20 years.

Lesser Powerhouses
The lesser powerhouse programs are schools that usually have success with a passionate fanbase but don't quite match the success of the first group.  I include Indiana, Louisville, Syracuse, Michigan State, and Connecticut in this group.  The only issue in this group is that before 2012 Indiana hadn't been to a  sweet 16 since 2002 though they seem to be back on track.  They were a no doubt powerhouse when Bobby Knight was coach.

The rest
I'm sure fans of schools like Arizona and Georgetown might disagree with being included in this grouping but they both benefited from having Hall of Fame coaches in Lute Olsen and John Thompson.  To be a powerhouse you have to do it over a long run and they haven't been able to climb back up to the top since those coaches left.

Ohio State compares favorably in this group especially when you consider there was a period from 1971 to 1992 that they didn't win a conference title.  Since then they've had their ups and downs and Thad Matta has definitely now has them in the conversation of sneaking into the lower group of basketball powers.  One this that could really go a long way to changing that perception is a national championship and Thad has a great opportunity to get one this season.  Even if it doesn't happen this year, if he can stay healthy then it is only a matter of time.

As a side note, I put all the football schools on the list above and highlighted them in RED. Someone noted a few years ago that the money going to the football BCS conferences was ruining college basketball as the smaller schools couldn't compete with the facilities. I'm not sure that is true because while the football powerhouses bring in the most revenue you can see from the chart that most of them struggle on the basketball court. It could be as someone joked that payments to football players leave little to give to the basketball players (just kidding!) but in all seriousness it is more likely that football powerhouses overshadow the basketball program.  Players and coaches have egos so it wouldn't surprise me if the best gravitate to schools that don't focus on football so they can be the BMOC (big man on campus). I don't know if that is true but it certainly makes Thad and the basketball Buckeyes success on the court all that more remarkable.