College Basketball’s 10 Tallest Teams: Does Height Make Right?

There’s lots of debate about the importance of height on the basketball court.

How much should a player’s size (or lack thereof) play into the decision of whether or not he will see the court?

Mountain State’s 7′ 8″ junior Paul Sturgess (pictured) is the tallest college basketball player in the country, and barely gets off the bench for the NAIA school from West Virginia. 

I am continually indebted to Ken Pomeroy, basketball statistic extraordinaire. He puts together stats like no one I’ve ever seen. http://www.kenpom.com/

One obscure stat he came up with is the average height of every team in Division 1 basketball. It was interesting to look at both ends of the spectrum.

First, the 10 shortest teams in D1 Hoops are:

(Average height in inches / 2010-11 overall record as of Jan 20)

No. 345  Prairie View A&M  (74.1 / 5-13)

No. 344  Robert Morris  (74.5 / 8-9)

No. 343  Arkansas Little Rock  (74.5 / 11-9)

No. 342  Savannah St.  (74.6 / 3-17)

No. 341  Oregon  (74.6 / 8-10)

No. 340  Florida Atlantic  (74.7 / 14-6)

No. 339  Quinnipiac  (74.7 / 12-5)

No. 338  Maryland Eastern Shore  (74.8 / 4-13)

No. 337  Delaware St.  (74.8 / 7-9) 

No. 336  Sacred Heart  (74.8 / 7-10)

(Trivia Question – Can you name the conferences in which these teams play?)

Only three of these teams are playing .500 ball or better.

So, does size matter? Maybe. Sometimes. In this case, it may be part of the story of these teams’ performance.

Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum…let’s see how the ten tallest teams in college basketball are fairing this season. 

Before you look, how many of these teams can you correctly identify?

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