For the Big 12 this year I think it's a little overrated, simply because they have good noncon wins, but mostly as a conference they have avoided bad noncon losses. Not getting blown out also helps.
The Big 12 has 1 Q4 loss and 1 Q3 loss between all 10 teams all season. That has lead itself to a situation where there just isn't a bad loss to be had because they don't have these anchor losses messing up their whole season. There are only 12 Q2 losses by all teams in the Big 12 combined between conference play and the noncon, that makes 14 Q2 or lower losses from the conference as a whole. The Big 10 has 59 Q2 or lower losses.
The Big 10 has 4 Q4 losses, and 10 Q3 losses. Those are almost all in the noncon, and those just drastically impact your NET. And when that happens, you don't get the benefit of all of your games in conference basically being Q1 games. ISU has played 18 Q1 games and 4 Q2 games. Iowa has played 12 Q1 games and 4 Q2 games. That, along with the EIU loss, is why Iowa is still ranked behind ISU in the NET even though I would agree they are a much better team right now.
Thanks. I want you to know that I'm in no way arguing with what you wrote, but just my thoughts. I was reading up on it and it said that margin of victory/loss along with losses in general are factors, but who you beat is the biggest factor, which is why I wondered how and why teams get to a certain level, good or bad, and are considered good/bad wins/losses. They don't seem to slip away from that because they're all playing each other once conference play hits with no chance to play out of conference to help change that.
The problem with comparing conferences' Q2 losses is that the Big 12 has 3 teams that would be Q2 wins/losses and those would have to be those 3 teams at home. The Big 10 has 11 teams that would be Q2 wins at home and 3 of those would also be Q2 wins on the road, so there are more chances for Q2 losses. So they're going to get more losses obviously, because one team has to win and one has to lose and get that Q2 loss. So basically we're talking about almost any Big 12 win/loss, home or away, being a Q1 win/loss and almost any Big 10 home win/loss being a Q2 win/loss, with some road games being Q2 games. There are simply more chances for Q2 wins/losses.
Taking out the top team and bottom 2 teams in each conference (KU and PU seem to be head and shoulders better than the rest and the 2 bottom feeders were dropped as well), they all have similar records (Big 12 go from 6-11 to 11-6 while Big 10 go from 8-11 to 11-8) and the teams from each conference played an average of about 21 total Q1 and Q2 games. Of those 18 teams, the Big 12 has the top 5 teams, the 7th team, and OSU is down the list. If you took those 18 teams, would 6 of the top 7 teams be from the Big 12 and all 11 of the Big 10 teams be in the bottom 13? I guess it's possible, but I just feel like, having watched the two conferences this year, I'd have to say no.
As I said in my original post, in no way am I trying to compare the two conferences and I do feel like the Big 12 is better. What my point is, is that somehow teams from a conference get locked in to a certain range of ranking and won't move out of that range because of the fact that they're playing teams that locked themselves in as higher ranked teams. Because of this, teams get locked into certain rankings ranges, the Big 12 has only played 46 Q2 games, while the Big 10 has played 112 Q2 games.
A person could say that it will all sort itself out in the tournament and that the best teams will win, but there's a huge difference between getting a 4-6 seed and getting a 7-9 seed because it's really tough to get very far if you have to play a 1 or 2 seed in the 2nd round.
