Big 12 is sooooo overrated as BB conference......

[The Mad Hatter]

I made a thread about the MVC and ACC regarding non-con road games, but I'll throw in some notes here about the B12 on that topic.

Conference	Road Games	Games Per Team	Wins	Losses	Winning %
B12	13	1.3	6	7	46.2%
MVC	39	3.9	14	25	35.8%

The biggest thing to note here is that Wichita State and Indiana State combined to have the same number of non-con road wins (6) as the ENTIRE B12!

[Blackmag]

Thats a great point, in the fact that alot of the so called Blue Boys in the BCS con. rarely play a non con. road game. The only time they do is on a nuetral court tourney type game or perhaps a road game with anotheir blue blood type so if they lose they won't take a big rpi hit. Thats why I don't get over-worked with the rpi thing because it is based on pre-season rankings, which is guess work with some big time bias thrown in. Big 10, Big 12, ACC will always have the majority of teams making up the top 25 and then they just knock each otheir off and keep it all in house as far as though rpi numbers.

[tgcshock]

The BCS fans always claim that the non-BCS schools will not know how to handle it when they face a "big-time" team in March Madness. We have seen time and time again however, that given the inbred schedules of the BCS heavyweights, it is often the case that they don't know how to handle it when they face an athletic, disciplined, and upper-classman heavy team from outside the BCS boy's club. We have already seen what happened to KU when ON THEIR HOME COURT they faced a SDSU team that they were not ready for.

[Flip1381]

I've heard a lot of talk about the RPI being a bad predictor or how this conference or that conference is overrated. What I haven't seen is anyone post why. For example, is the American Athletic conference (or whatever conference is considered the best) better because of BPI, FG%, DefFG%, etc. I'm not trying to make a case for the RPI being a good predictor of a good conference or team, but what other predictors are people using? Sagarin? Kenpom?

When the tournament rolls around I want to be able to use the best predictor to win Buffet's billion.

[WSUwatcher]

I would disagree. RPI has no predictive power and can be gamed. That is why u have seen them make changes in how it is calculated.

Exactly, SB -- RPI is unbiased and doesn't look at names, but the same can be said of throwing darts. That doesn't make the dartboard method a good one for picking the field. RPI is mechanical, and it has it weaknesses, and that's why the selection committee looks at it as just a tool, not some sort of golden measuring stick.

[choida]

KU is a good team...I say sweet 16 minimum...all any team needs is a ticket and a couple good teams to get knocked off early and you can have a smoother path to the sweet 16.

[WSUwatcher]

I made a thread about the MVC and ACC regarding non-con road games, but I'll throw in some notes here about the B12 on that topic.

Conference	Road Games	Games Per Team	Wins	Losses	Winning %
B12	13	1.3	6	7	46.2%
MVC	39	3.9	14	25	35.8%

The biggest thing to note here is that Wichita State and Indiana State combined to have the same number of non-con road wins (6) as the ENTIRE B12!

Hatter, your point has merit, but one thing I noticed as I was checking Warren Nolan to catch up on the MVC's latest reshuffling in the middle of the pack is that apart from WSU, the Valley is 1-25 gaainst the RPI top 50. That's partly WSU's fault, obviously; another way to put it is that the Valley is 0-14 against WSU and 1-11 against the rest of the top 50, all outside the league inasmuch as Indiana State is just outside the top 50 at #54. And of course even WSU is only 2-0, although Tennessee will make it 3-0 if they move back up as Nolan predicts.

Three or four non-con top 50 wins all season for the entire league is not good (the other one, by the way, is the UNIs' upset over VCU when the Shakas were floundering a bit early). Obviously, there's been a little bit of bad scheduling luck there, with Alabama and Notre Dame being so mediocre to cost WSU and IndSt good wins; and Belmont seems likely to stay just a bit out of the top 50, thus costing IndSt another chance at an underappreciated quality win.

So, yes -- I absolutely agree that the Big 12 is overblown and overrated. But the Valley is stinking it up this year, not even close to the top 10 in RPI as a league and barely clinging to 11th ahead of the Mid-American, for heaven's sake. Let's wait until the MVC recovers a bit, as we can hope they will in the next couple of years, before anyone tries to present them as the Big 12's unknown twin. And let's hope that whenever a recovery by the rest of the league occurs, WSU is somehow watching in its rear view mirror from a new conference.

[shockmonster]

KU is a good team...I say sweet 16 minimum...all any team needs is a ticket and a couple good teams to get knocked off early and you can have a smoother path to the sweet 16.

Sweet 16 minimum such as a few years ago when KU was #1 on the S Curve and then lost to Northern Iowa and UNI went to the Sweet 16?

[Flip1381]

And like he said, "all any team needs is a ticket and a couple good teams get knocked off early" which allowed Michigan State and Baylor to make it to the Elite 8.

[Cdizzle]

Speaking of the Big12, we should get Tech on the schedule. They finally made a good hire. Tubby has them headed in the right direction.

[WSUwatcher]

Speaking of the Big12, we should get Tech on the schedule. They finally made a good hire. Tubby has them headed in the right direction.

Good game, but dangerous roadie -- TTU is EXTREMELY tough at home, especially if you're a name opponent, as WSU would be.

[The Mad Hatter]

Hatter, your point has merit, but one thing I noticed as I was checking Warren Nolan to catch up on the MVC's latest reshuffling in the middle of the pack is that apart from WSU, the Valley is 1-25 gaainst the RPI top 50. That's partly WSU's fault, obviously; another way to put it is that the Valley is 0-14 against WSU and 1-11 against the rest of the top 50, all outside the league inasmuch as Indiana State is just outside the top 50 at #54. And of course even WSU is only 2-0, although Tennessee will make it 3-0 if they move back up as Nolan predicts.

Three or four non-con top 50 wins all season for the entire league is not good (the other one, by the way, is the UNIs' upset over VCU when the Shakas were floundering a bit early). Obviously, there's been a little bit of bad scheduling luck there, with Alabama and Notre Dame being so mediocre to cost WSU and IndSt good wins; and Belmont seems likely to stay just a bit out of the top 50, thus costing IndSt another chance at an underappreciated quality win.

So, yes -- I absolutely agree that the Big 12 is overblown and overrated. But the Valley is stinking it up this year, not even close to the top 10 in RPI as a league and barely clinging to 11th ahead of the Mid-American, for heaven's sake. Let's wait until the MVC recovers a bit, as we can hope they will in the next couple of years, before anyone tries to present them as the Big 12's unknown twin. And let's hope that whenever a recovery by the rest of the league occurs, WSU is somehow watching in its rear view mirror from a new conference.

To be clear, nothing in my post (or in my comparison of the ACC and MVC on non-con road games) was intended as a suggestion that the MVC was at the level of these conference, or good in any terms. The Valley has been really bad this year. It is made worse by the disadvantage of having to play on the road, but the fundamental quality disparity goes well beyond that this year.

My point is that a bad conference will look even worse if it has to play on the road constantly (like the MVC) and a good conference will look even better if they never have to leave home (like the ACC and B12).

Even very good conferences have a 30-40% difference in their overall non-con winning percentage and their road non-con winning percentage. Even with the RPI weighing road wins favorably, they are so hard to come by that any conference that doesn't have to go on the road will look better than a conference that has to.

[im4wsu]

Comparing the W/L records of teams from various conferences in the Dance since 2001 (the farthest back my conference affiliations go) both when the conference team was the underdog according to seeding or, rather, the favorite or playing a team with the same seed. Really not a big differential, except for the MVC favorite/equal 63.6%, but the sample size is so small that is is probably irrelevant.

What does this show? Well, maybe that there isn't much to distinguish between conference teams that get into the Dance. It does show that "seedings" arre largely upheld, the favorite winning.

[Play Angry]

Looks like the current system works pretty well.

[im4wsu]

Here is the same chart again, considering all games played against other conference teams.



Here I have removed those games where the team finished either first or second in their conference. Just to see what difference it would make.