I've seen CardsRuleBE point out a few times that in the past 8 years Pitino has lead us to the Elite Eight or better 50% of the time. Expanding that out to 10 years (excluding his first year) I wanted to see how we stacked up against the other elite programs. Here's what I came up with:

Only UNC (6), Kansas (6), and Kentucky (5) have more Elite Eight or better finishes since 2003. We have 4 along with Florida, UConn, and Michigan State. Not a dud in the bunch.

The rest of the Elite Eight or better:

Memphis, Texas, UCLA, and Arizona have 3 each.

Other power house teams? Duke, Syracuse, and Ohio State all have 2 each. This is the same number as Butler, WVU, Villanova, Oklahoma, Baylor, and Xavier.

Pittsburgh, Georgetown, and Marquette are all on the board with 1 along with a bunch of others including George Mason, VCU, and that damn Illinois team.

The flip side of all this is that in the past 10 years those 6 other teams on our elite level have all made it to the championship game; all but Michigan State have won the championship; and UNC, UConn, and Florida have won it twice. We need that banner.

Other than that final all important piece of the puzzle, I think this is a strong argument for just how good we are doing under Pitino. Especially when you zoom out even further and remember that we only went to the Elite 8 one other time (1997) in the 18 seasons between 1986 and 2005.

Summary style:

6 - Kansas, UNC
5 - Kentucky
4 - Louisville, UConn, Michigan State, Florida
3 - Memphis, Texas, UCLA, Arizona
2 - Duke, Syracuse, Ohio State, Butler, WVU, Villanova, Oklahoma, Baylor, Xavier
1 - Pittsburgh, Georgetown, Marquette, George Mason, VCU, Illinois, others