CBS Sports: Wildcats among top 30 best 2021-22 sports programs

Led by their men’s basketball team’s success last season, the Arizona Wildcats can hold their heads high when it comes to success in their athletic department as a whole.

CBS Sports released its Best in College Sports rankings for 2021-22 on Monday, with the Wildcats landing 30th among the 130 sports programs listed.

Since 2013, CBS Sports has put together its Best in College Sports award, which employs a weighted formula that recognizes each school’s most popular sports, including football and men’s and women’s basketball.

Arizona had a season to remember in a variety of sports, including their men’s basketball team finishing 33-4 and earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in head coach Tommy Lloyd’s first season.

Arizona fell to the hands of Houston in the Sweet 16.

Arizona women’s basketball also had a memorable season, going 21-8 on the year. Arizona lost to North Carolina in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Football is where the Wildcats struggled mightily last season, as the program went 1-11 and finished dead last in the Pac-12.

Rival Arizona State is ranked 57th on the list and finished as the eighth best Pac-12 team in 2021-22.

After entering the season with high expectations, Sun Devil men’s basketball went 14-17 and fell to Stanford in the Pac-12 Tournament to end the year.

Amid losing a handful of assistants due to the ongoing NCAA investigation into the team’s recruiting practices, Arizona State football went 8-5, capped off by a 20-13 loss to Wisconsin in the Las Vegas Bowl.

After winning their first five out of six games, the Sun Devils tailed off toward the end of the season, which included two brutal back-to-back losses to BYU and Utah that ended any hopes they had for a chance to play in the Pac-12 championship.

Sun Devil women’s basketball went 12-14 this past season in Charli Turner Thorne’s final season coaching. The team lost six straight games while finishing 4-9 against the Pac-12.

In CBS Sports’ rankings, the Michigan Wolverines finished as the most consistent collegiate athletics program, the school’s second title in three years.

The voting is handled through programs’ success in three sports — football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball — along with two “wild cards” among the school’s most successful spectator sports: baseball, softball, volleyball, soccer, gymnastics, lacrosse, hockey and wrestling.