Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #863 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-06
• Released on: 2009-10-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1232 pages

Review
“A great history book and argument settler, with countless stories about the game’s biggest stars, best teams and most enduring traditions.”—Lute Olson

Customer Reviews

Massive and entertaining book on college basketball history
The new college basketball season is about to start a month from now, and just in time for that, ESPN has published this massive (and I mean massive) coffee-table book on the history of men's college baskteball.

"ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Men's Game" (1,213 pages) is a delight for any fan of men's college basketball. This massive (and did I say massive?) coffee-table book is in fact several books into one. The first 50 pages or so bring various essays about the men's college basketball history, including a nice one from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on how blacks made it into the game. There is also an irrevent look on some totally unexpected Sweet 16 teams, just fun to read. The next 500 pages or so bring a team-by-team review of the top 250 programs in the country (each getting 2 pages). The next 600 pages or so bring a review of the NCAA tournaments from the first days until last year's and again it is a delight to flip through and read whatever strikes your fancy.

The book also brings a rating of the all-time best programs (UK is rated No. 1, ahead of UCLA), as well as a rating decade-by-decade. As a fan of the Xavier Musketeers (the small Jesuit school here in Cincinnati), I was quite pleased to see the program rated No. 24 in the most recent decade. That aside, this book has a treasure of information for any college basketball fan. Can't wait to get the new season started!

A must for every hardcore college basketball fan
Well I'll just start off by saying that I don't agree with the program ratings at all! I expected my school, which shall remain nameless, to have been ranked higher (is it a non-bcs school thing? geographic thing? who knows). So I compared some of the tournament statistics they gave with other schools that were ranked above, and this only added to my confusion as to what criteria they used to rank the programs. With that said, given this is a review of the book, and not my personal opinion or disappointment with the rankings, I found this to be a great collection of facts and statistics. It even lists Top 25 rankings throughout each season. I've been a huge college baskeball fan since I was in my early teens so it was nice to flash back to the past. Overall, it's a pretty complete book and if you're a true fan of the game, you'll really enjoy this book.