Best conference?
- Thread starter theboat
- Start date
WinOneThisCentury
Well-Known Member
I never understood Baylor at #3 seed. Wow...this has to be a first...one conference with two three seeds going down on the first day. If SMU loses...and they are in a dogfight with our boy Alford right now...B12 gots some splaining to do.
WindsorHawk
Well-Known Member
Best conference to be determined.
lightning1
Well-Known Member
The BIG!
ISC
Well-Known Member
Yeah, i wish i had some evidence to defend the big 12 right now... but i don't.... Up until today it looked like it was the best conference based on the out of conference records, but it's evident the other teams got better since early season and maybe the big 12 'peaked' back then (??) ... no idea.
SpecialKHawk
Well-Known Member
What were some of the non-con wins in Nov-Dec that were big time wins for the Big12? I know Iowa was 2 of them but we lost 11 games so it is not like we were a jaw dropping win. Kansas got absolutely crushed by Kentucky and they won the league.
How many on neutral courts or away from home as well?
ibahawkeye
Well-Known Member
My bracket reflected my belief that the Big 12 and ACC are strongest conferences. Ruh roh!!
ISC
Well-Known Member
Not sure and i don't have the time to look it up, but these are the ones i remember:
Kansas beat Michigan State and Utah, ISU beat Arkansas and Iowa (and Georgia State -> not a great win, but thought i'd mention it
) , Oklahoma beat UCLA and Butler. I'm sure there were some other "tournament teams" in there too (as i know someone beat UConn which at the time looked better than it turned out to be that's for sure).SpecialKHawk
Well-Known Member
Not sure and i don't have the time to look it up, but these are the ones i remember:
Kansas beat Michigan State and Utah, ISU beat Arkansas and Iowa (and Georgia State -> not a great win, but thought i'd mention it
Those are some solid wins but nothing earth shattering. I think the Butler win is solid. The Georgia St win was quality and some thought they were good at the time they went into Hilton.
There were also losses to Maryland, South Carolina as you know but a win over NIT bound Alabama. I also recall Oklahoma blowing a 17 pt lead to Creighton who was near the bottom of the new Big East this year. K-State had a super bad loss to someone like Michigan's to NJTU.
I think if you go across the Power 5 you are going to find similar results both good and bad.
Maybe the moral of the story is there is a handful of elite teams and a lot of parity among everyone else.
ISC
Well-Known Member
Yep, i agree with your assessment. And yeah, the conference also had some bad losses.
Thawki
Well-Known Member
Probably a lot of Big 12 people in the media. I have heard one guy that is in the national media that used to work for the KC Star say they thought the Big 12 was overrated this year. Several sports radio hosts have said the same thing for years, with the rationale being that if no one can unseed KU while they win 11 straight (albeit two or three ties) then how good can the conference be overall?
Kevin Keitzman grew up in KC and has the top-rated sports radio show in KC. He was saying he wouldn't be surprised if only one team gets out of this weekend, and that was before the KU v Wichita State matchup was on the schedule for Sunday. There are a lot of rational B12 people that believe the conference is overrated, at least in the media.
blubberhawk
Well-Known Member
Not sure and i don't have the time to look it up, but these are the ones i remember:
Kansas beat Michigan State and Utah, ISU beat Arkansas and Iowa (and Georgia State -> not a great win, but thought i'd mention it
ISU lost to South Carolina and Maryland, both on Neutral courts. Beat Iowa & Ark. Not bad but nothing great.
Okie State lost by 26 to South Carolina and Maryland. Best win either Ore. State or Tulsa. Nothing great there.
Texas lost to Stanford and Kentucky. Best win was probably Iowa. Nothing great there.
Baylor lost to Illinois. Beat Stephen Austin and Memphis for good wins. Nothing great there.
Oklahoma lost to Creighton and Wisc. Beat UCLA and Butler. Nothing great there.
Kansas lost to Temple by 25 and Kentucky by 32. Beat MSU, Georgetown and Utah. Played a tough schedule. Kudos for that.
West Virginia beat NC State and lost to LSU. Nothing great there..
And you are right. the UCONN wins turned out to be nothing special.
I still contend that having a couple of the teams (Texas & Kansas) play Kentucky, totally inflated the RPIs of the conference. Playing 2 games each against Tex. & Kansas, (even though both lost to Kentucky) really had a positive effect on the RPI of all the teams in the league.
Buffalo played virtually no one all year, except Wisc. and Kentucky. They lost to both of those teams and 7 other games to virtual nobodies and yet still maintained a good rpi because they played Wis. & Kentucky.
Never again, should teams that are 2 games under .500 in league play be invited to the NCAA Tourney, regardless of the league.
SpecialKHawk
Well-Known Member
Good stuff but do not get me started on the biggest BS statisic ever evented, the RPI. Good old freaking Iona with a SOS in the 200's was sporting a sub 50 RPI most of the year. They made the NIT and got their doors blown off by Rhode Island in the opening round. How about Ohio St from our own conference? Who did they really beat this year except for Maryland at home?
Baylor had wins over Texas A&M & Vandy also. They actually tried to schedule some decent, not great programs overall so I tip my cap to them.
I think the OK over Butler win was pretty good in hind sight. Might be one of the better ones.
What might be killing the Big 12 in tourney play is it has great athletes but like football is so offensively geared. Few teams are forced to play grind it out, one possession basketball night after night like you get in some of the other leagues.
The B1G was down this year outside of Wisky from the past 3-4 years. We have been hit by the exodus of natural graduation and early entries. At least this conference does not sit around and self proclomate itself like the Big12. They let the results on the field or court speak for itself.
blubberhawk
Well-Known Member
The moral of the story is to schedule Kentucky & Duke. Both of those schools will most always win 25+ games and both play a lot of teams that will have good records, too. Doesn't matter if you lose to Duke & Kentucky or even if you play them close.. The games with them will inflate the hell out of your RPI. Oh, and it try to find another team that plays both of those schools and get a game with them too.
deanvogs
Well-Known Member
RPI has been a joke for a long time now. I do think that the committee is relying on it less and less though, and that is a good thing. I mean none of these teams got rewarded for gaming the system and having an artifically inflated RPI:
#28 Colorado St.
#29 Buffalo
#32 Dayton
#33 Davidson
#34 Temple
#35 Stephen F. Austin
#38 BYU
All of those teams were seeded behind Iowa at a #43 RPI, #39 OSU, #40 NC State, #41 Cincy, #46 Oklahoma St.
#28 Colorado St.
#29 Buffalo
#32 Dayton
#33 Davidson
#34 Temple
#35 Stephen F. Austin
#38 BYU
All of those teams were seeded behind Iowa at a #43 RPI, #39 OSU, #40 NC State, #41 Cincy, #46 Oklahoma St.
ISC
Well-Known Member
I am totally with you on the last point. Unless you win the automatic berth, a winning (or at the very least .500) conference record should be a prerequisite to getting in the conference tourney. I was saying all along i'd rather put someone else in the tournament than texas as they had done nothing to deserve it except "not lose to anyone bad".... but on the flip side they pretty much hadn't beaten anyone good.
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