PDA

View Full Version : Does a conference need to produce a national champion to be considered the best?



Buckeye Devil
03-30-2013, 10:34 AM
The Big 10 was supposedly the best conference this year. Four of the Sweet 16 were from the Big 10 but now there are only 2. I dare say that a lot of people across the country would have guessed that IU and MSU would be the 2 remaining and not OSU and UM. But IU was stymied by the Orange Zone and we all know what Duke did to MSU. So we have 3 of the Elite 8 from the Big East, with one Final 4 spot secure. If the Big East produces the national champion, does that mean it was the best league in the land? Certainly no would say that the ACC or SEC was the best in the land should Duke or Florida win it all, let alone the MVC if Wichita could miraculously win it. So does a league need to produce the national champion to be considered the best? Or is it such a crap shoot at this point that it doesn't matter?

CDu
03-30-2013, 10:47 AM
The Big 10 was supposedly the best conference this year. Four of the Sweet 16 were from the Big 10 but now there are only 2. I dare say that a lot of people across the country would have guessed that IU and MSU would be the 2 remaining and not OSU and UM. But IU was stymied by the Orange Zone and we all know what Duke did to MSU. So we have 3 of the Elite 8 from the Big East, with one Final 4 spot secure. If the Big East produces the national champion, does that mean it was the best league in the land? Certainly no would say that the ACC or SEC was the best in the land should Duke or Florida win it all, let alone the MVC if Wichita could miraculously win it. So does a league need to produce the national champion to be considered the best? Or is it such a crap shoot at this point that it doesn't matter?

No. This is a fallacy to which many many people fall prey. The tournament does not determine the best team in college basketball. As such, it certainly does not determine the best conference in college basketball.

The Big-10 WAS the best conference this year. Period. End of story. They had 4 of the top-10 teams (per Pomeroy), 6 of the top-20, and 8 of the top-40. That's right: 8 of their 12 teams were in the top-40!

The Big East has 4 more teams, so naturally they should have more tourney teams. 2 of their 3 teams caught very fortunate breaks in their paths to the Elite-8: Marquette SHOULD have lost their opening game but for a brain fart by Davidson at the end. They very well COULD have lost to Butler but for some last-second heroics as well. And they were fortunate to not have to play Miami at full strength (Johnson out and Larkin sick to the point of vomiting). Syracuse got fortunate to not have to play a tough 2nd round opponent, and even then it was closer than it should have been against Cal. They did beat Indiana, thanks in part to Indiana freaking out and in part to the officials letting Syracuse assault Zeller around the basket. That those two teams are facing each other for a spot in the Final Four is just evidence of the flukey nature of the tourney - not the supremacy of that conference.

The Big East does have arguably the best team in the field. But the Big-10 was the best conference this year. Tournament results shouldn't be used as evidence to dispute that, because a series of one-game eliminations is not a good measure of who the best is.

CoachJ10
03-30-2013, 10:58 AM
No. This is a fallacy to which many many people fall prey. The tournament does not determine the best team in college basketball. As such, it certainly does not determine the best conference in college basketball.

The Big-10 WAS the best conference this year. Period. End of story. They had 4 of the top-10 teams (per Pomeroy), 6 of the top-20, and 8 of the top-40. That's right: 8 of their 12 teams were in the top-40!

The Big East has 4 more teams, so naturally they should have more tourney teams. 2 of their 3 teams caught very fortunate breaks in their paths to the Elite-8: Marquette SHOULD have lost their opening game but for a brain fart by Davidson at the end. They very well COULD have lost to Butler but for some last-second heroics as well. And they were fortunate to not have to play Miami at full strength (Johnson out and Larkin sick to the point of vomiting). Syracuse got fortunate to not have to play a tough 2nd round opponent, and even then it was closer than it should have been against Cal. They did beat Indiana, thanks in part to Indiana freaking out and in part to the officials letting Syracuse assault Zeller around the basket. That those two teams are facing each other for a spot in the Final Four is just evidence of the flukey nature of the tourney - not the supremacy of that conference.

The Big East does have arguably the best team in the field. But the Big-10 was the best conference this year. Tournament results shouldn't be used as evidence to dispute that, because a series of one-game eliminations is not a good measure of who the best is.

This is a tangent to the thread topic...but Indiana won against Temple on a shameful performance by the refs (IU got called for *8* fouls the entire game). No Big 10 team with its grab and hold defense commits only 8 fouls a game. Besides that, I think its fair to say that Zeller got plenty of the Hansborough treatment this season (cheap, nonsense fouls on his defenders) and didn't know how to play when he wasn't getting bailed out. That's what I saw in this game.

CDu
03-30-2013, 11:01 AM
This is a tangent to the thread topic...but Indiana won against Temple on a shameful performance by the refs (IU got called for *8* fouls the entire game). No Big 10 team with its grab and hold defense commits only 8 fouls a game. Besides that, I think its fair to say that Zeller got plenty of the Hansborough treatment this season (cheap, nonsense fouls on his defenders) and didn't know how to play when he wasn't getting bailed out. That's what I saw in this game.

Very true. Indiana SHOULD have lost to Temple. That does not change anything about the discussion, but it is very true.

Similarly, OSU SHOULD have lost to Iowa State, but got similar good treatment from the refs. And they very easily could have lost to Arizona. Again, though, doesn't change anything about the discussion of best conference. Any particular one-game sample could tell any number of different stories.

theAlaskanBear
03-30-2013, 11:14 AM
The Big 10 was supposedly the best conference this year. Four of the Sweet 16 were from the Big 10 but now there are only 2. I dare say that a lot of people across the country would have guessed that IU and MSU would be the 2 remaining and not OSU and UM. But IU was stymied by the Orange Zone and we all know what Duke did to MSU. So we have 3 of the Elite 8 from the Big East, with one Final 4 spot secure. If the Big East produces the national champion, does that mean it was the best league in the land? Certainly no would say that the ACC or SEC was the best in the land should Duke or Florida win it all, let alone the MVC if Wichita could miraculously win it. So does a league need to produce the national champion to be considered the best? Or is it such a crap shoot at this point that it doesn't matter?

Well, I do think the B1G was over-rated this year. They are the deepest league with a several good teams, but those teams are not better than the elite teams from other conferences. If you look at the non-conference strength of schedules for the B1G teams, Indiana was at 200+, OSU, Mich, Wis were all 150+....so to me that says they rode weak non-conference schedules into the B1G season, which made pundits say, oh they are so good! And when they beat each other up during the conference, "oh what a tough conference", and when they get more teams in the NCAA and easier seeding, "oh its the best conference".

Basically, its a self perpetuating reality -- never mind that the acc-big challenge was tied, never mind that the Big East had the best winning percentage and has more teams alive than any other conference. The ACC was 8-6 against the B1G, and 3-2 against the Big East, meanwhile the Big East was 4-3 against the B1G. The B1G feasted against the terrible Big 12 (8-1) but tied the A-10 4-4 (whereas the ACC was 12-3 against the A10, and the big east 11-6 vs the a10).

That said, the NCAA tourney is largely about match-ups and coaching and luck...in no way should the "best conference" be interpreted through tournament results. It is a small piece of the overall pie.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
03-30-2013, 11:45 AM
I find myself much more concerned about the national perception of our conference when we aren't in the middle of vying for a national championship.

In the unlikely event that we don't run the table and win our fifth national championship (j/k) I will revisit this thread and complain about the lack of respect nationally for the ACC, the excitement of having Syracuse, Pitt, and Notre Dame coming in, what will happen to Louisville next year (really, does anyone know?) etc. etc.

Til then, let's keep winning games and making all the other conferences look bad.

Go Duke!

hurleyfor3
03-30-2013, 11:52 AM
Many examples when the best conference in the country didn't win the championship.

ACC in '95 and '97. Big XII in '02 and '03. ACC in '04.

One of my favorite rules for filling out brackets is, "If a conference is clearly the best in the country this year, it will put two teams in the Final Four. These may NOT be the two best teams in the conference, and the conference will not necessarily produce the national champion."

2004 is the archetypal example. It works well this year (so far) for either the B1G or the Big East, although I rather it bear out this year for the B1G.

badgerbd
03-30-2013, 02:04 PM
Well, I do think the B1G was over-rated this year. They are the deepest league with a several good teams, but those teams are not better than the elite teams from other conferences. If you look at the non-conference strength of schedules for the B1G teams, Indiana was at 200+, OSU, Mich, Wis were all 150+....so to me that says they rode weak non-conference schedules into the B1G season, which made pundits say, oh they are so good! And when they beat each other up during the conference, "oh what a tough conference", and when they get more teams in the NCAA and easier seeding, "oh its the best conference".

Basically, its a self perpetuating reality -- never mind that the acc-big challenge was tied, never mind that the Big East had the best winning percentage and has more teams alive than any other conference. The ACC was 8-6 against the B1G, and 3-2 against the Big East, meanwhile the Big East was 4-3 against the B1G. The B1G feasted against the terrible Big 12 (8-1) but tied the A-10 4-4 (whereas the ACC was 12-3 against the A10, and the big east 11-6 vs the a10).

That said, the NCAA tourney is largely about match-ups and coaching and luck...in no way should the "best conference" be interpreted through tournament results. It is a small piece of the overall pie.


They don't need to produce the champ to be the best conference. (However, if you want to compare a basketball conference to SEC football you should have more than 1 title in 29 years).
The Big 10, might be the best conference this year. However, I agree with AB that they were over rated. If they were the best conference it wasn't in the land slide that most seem to think. They had a bunch of teams that for whatever reason - peaking early or just inconsistent teams that won at the "right" time - performed very well in the non conference and then came back to earth in conference play (Ill and Minn, for extreme examples). That inflated a lot of the rpi/pomeroy stat based metrics.

The tournament doesn't do a good job of picking the best team, but there is a large enough sample of games to start to evaluate a conference. The big 10 non 1-4 seeds did nothing special - Wisconsin lost to a 12, but that 12 has done pretty well. 7 and 10 seeds won 1 game each. Their top 4 all advanced to the sweet sixteen with heavy home court advantages(Dayton and Auburn Hills for all 4). OSU only reached the sweet 16 because of a really bad call and needed another last second shot to get by 6 seed Arizona. Indiana didn't look good against Temple and looked bad against Syracuse. MSU looked good in their first two games then got out classed by Duke. Michigan has looked the best - knocking off a 1 seed Kansas and walloping VCU.

That's not the performance of a bad conference, but it doesn't scream best conference either.

Jarhead
03-30-2013, 03:55 PM
One occasional title doesn't a top conference make, but multiple titles by conference members make for a top conference.

brevity
03-30-2013, 04:48 PM
A conference can be the best over the regular season and not have a title to show for it. It's one of the consequences of a single elimination tournament. Conversely, anointing a national champion usually says nothing about its conference strength. Was the ACC the best in 2010? The Big West in 1990?

I don't see the appeal of this discussion. Everyone wants to anoint a "best conference" but no one wants to agree on any criteria. Charles Barkley appealed to contrarians when he said the Big Ten was overrated. I wanted him to be right, but he wasn't. Wisconsin's opening loss is countered by Minnesota's opening win. Illinois, MSU, and Ohio State played to its seed. Now we have Indiana's loss and Michigan's win balancing each other out, so the conference as a whole is sticking to chalk. That makes it properly rated.

But then people throw in numbers and mention the teams at the bottom of the conference, which feels tangential. The best conference can be defined more simply by the absence of a better conference. I'm not seeing the other BCS conferences or the MWC jumping forward here.

Buckeye Devil
03-30-2013, 11:18 PM
I think if ever a conference needed to win the national championship to be considered the best in the land it is the Big 10. Especially after the egg Ohio State laid against a team from the MVC.

gocanes0506
03-30-2013, 11:42 PM
A conference shows its legitimacy by getting teams in the sweet 16. If there are multiple teams there from one conference, it shows that conference was good. After the sweet 16, there are too many good teams to say a title is the overall factor.

CameronBornAndBred
03-30-2013, 11:56 PM
When Hayward missed in 2010 and then they lost again in 2011, did anyone walk away saying Butler's conference was the second best? No. And they wouldn't have been even if the shot went in.

1 24 90
03-31-2013, 12:05 AM
Jay Bilas did make the point that eventually a conference has to win national titles to be labeled the best. The Big Ten has 1 since 1989.

NashvilleDevil
03-31-2013, 12:26 AM
Jay Bilas did make the point that eventually a conference has to win national titles to be labeled the best. The Big Ten has 1 since 1989.

2 if you're counting Michigan's win in 1989. I just go with when the tournament expanded to 64 teams and since then the Big 10 has 3

bluesin
03-31-2013, 01:36 AM
Was the ACC the best in 2010?

In retrospect, going by the Pomeroy numbers, the answer is yes. Not that I think that has anything to do with the topic of this thread exactly (and Duke's run in the tournament certainly helped bump the numbers in the end). It's still is something that irritates me that the ACC wasn't seen being as good as it was in 2010, UNC not being in the tournament might have something to do with that. I still remember heated debates with people I knew trying to justify the ACC being a really tough conference that year when they insisted that the Big East and (ugh) the Big 12 were obviously better. Our final margin over the Big East, even with their 8 teams in the NCAA Tourney, was pretty large. The Big 12 might have been the better conference that year, but in the end maybe this is the exception to the rule where the ACC produced the champion ending the argument between who was better.

Of course the Pomeroy numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt I suppose since in 2009 they said the PAC 10 was the best conference (and I'm a firm believer that the PAC Whatever has been garbage for a while) and only one team out of 6 made it out of the first weekend, so perhaps Pomeroy does a better job of saying which conference was tougher throughout or top to bottom, but maybe not which conference was better. It's late and I don't have the energy for a breakdown of the semantics - plus I really just wanted the chance to say, yes in 2010 I believe the ACC was the best conference, or at least very very close to the top :p.

Wander
03-31-2013, 09:36 AM
The tournament does not determine the best team in college basketball.

You know, this has become a common thing for people to say, but I'm becoming more convinced that the tournament isn't nearly as much of a crapshoot as people make it out to be, at least as far as selecting a national champion goes. Over the last decade, only once (UConn in 2011) has there been a national champion that had no real argument for "best team." Maybe that'll happen again this year, but it actually compares pretty favorably to the NFL playoffs, or even the non-single-elimination sports like the MLB or NHL playoffs.

Back on topic, a conference wouldn't need a national champion even if the NCAA tournament had best of 99 series for each round. I mean, if a conference had the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th best team in a sport with 350 teams, they would clearly be the best conference, even though they didn't have the single best.

dukestheheat
03-31-2013, 10:27 AM
The answer to this question, in my opinion, depends upon the timeframe that you're studying. In the short-term, no, in the longer term, yes, I believe.

A dark horse can explode on the scene and win it, and certainly not necessarily come from that year's 'best conference' (Villanova won years back and while the Big East at that time was strong........it wasn't considered the best).

Getting 'best' requires results consistently. . The ACC has earned this over time, certainly with momentary lapses in national performance.

My $.02.

Dth

noyac
03-31-2013, 11:18 AM
All the "experts" have said the Big Ten is the best conference in the land and I am not trying to say that it was not a good conference this year but let's look at their out of conference wins against ranked opponents by team.


Wisconsin------none
Penn State-----none
Purdue---------none
Ohio State-----none
Northwestern--none
Nebraska-------none
Minnesota------Memphis
Michigan State-Kansas
Michigan--------NC State
Iowa------------none
Indiana---------Tar Holes
Illinois----------none

I know wins against ranked opponents is not the only factor to consider when determining the strength of a conference but it does show that they do not always show up for big games.

noyac
03-31-2013, 11:30 AM
Now let's look at the ACC.

Wake Forest-----none
Virginia Tech----Oklahoma St.
Virginia----------none
NC State--------none
Tar Holes-------UNLV
Maryland-------none
Miami-----------Michigan St.
Georgia Tech---none
Florida St.------none
Duke------------Kentucky, Louisville, Ohio State
Clemson--------none
Boston College-none

Olympic Fan
03-31-2013, 11:34 AM
No. This is a fallacy to which many many people fall prey. The tournament does not determine the best team in college basketball. As such, it certainly does not determine the best conference in college basketball.

The Big-10 WAS the best conference this year. Period. End of story. They had 4 of the top-10 teams (per Pomeroy), 6 of the top-20, and 8 of the top-40. That's right: 8 of their 12 teams were in the top-40!

The Big East has 4 more teams, so naturally they should have more tourney teams. 2 of their 3 teams caught very fortunate breaks in their paths to the Elite-8: Marquette SHOULD have lost their opening game but for a brain fart by Davidson at the end. They very well COULD have lost to Butler but for some last-second heroics as well. And they were fortunate to not have to play Miami at full strength (Johnson out and Larkin sick to the point of vomiting). Syracuse got fortunate to not have to play a tough 2nd round opponent, and even then it was closer than it should have been against Cal. They did beat Indiana, thanks in part to Indiana freaking out and in part to the officials letting Syracuse assault Zeller around the basket. That those two teams are facing each other for a spot in the Final Four is just evidence of the flukey nature of the tourney - not the supremacy of that conference.

The Big East does have arguably the best team in the field. But the Big-10 was the best conference this year. Tournament results shouldn't be used as evidence to dispute that, because a series of one-game eliminations is not a good measure of who the best is.

While I agree that you can't ultimately judge the strength of a conference by its performance in the tournament, I also disagree with the assertion that the Big Ten was clearly the best conference this year -- period, end of story.

There are some statistical metrics that point to that conclusion -- RPI and Pomeroy would show that, but there is also evidence that the Big Ten was NOT the best conference as was so often asserted.

I think the best evidence was to look at who they beat outside the league. Even in the regular season, the ACC scored more top 50 victories outside the league than the Big Ten. The ACC had a significantly better record against non-conference top 100 teams than the Big Ten. The ACC had a winning head-to-head record with the Big Ten (10-6 after Duke's win Friday). The ACC's top five ACC teams went 3-2 against the top 5 Big Ten teams in the Challenge (and that was with the Big Ten having a 3-2 edge in home games).

Am I arguing that the ACC was the best conference? No, but I think you can make the case that it was better than the Big Ten. It proved its superiority on the court.

You can look at those metrics that show that the Big Ten was so great ... the same metrics rate the Mountain West as the second-best conference -- and they never beat ANYBODY!

No, the Big Ten's greatness is myth -- a myth that is being exposed in the NCAA Tournament. It's a myth that ESPN and the NCAA Selection Committee swallowed hole. Once the storyline was adopted, then nothing could shake it -- look at how tough the Big Ten was ... they beat each other up in the league. Wow ... who doesn't do that?

The Big Ten was a good story line. But on the court, the Big Ten never proved its superiority.

Duvall
03-31-2013, 02:37 PM
This thread may be a bit premature...