Big East vs AAC Attendance

[ArmyVet]

SMU just got a commitment from one of the top 5 recruits in the country. I bet it doesn't move attendance up at all. The bottom of the AAC is horrible and in 2014 when Louisville is gone, they are a mid major in basketball.

They will likely be a 2-3 bid league because of UConn, Memphis, and Cincy the majority of the time so midmajor probably isn't fair but also isn't far off.

[BillEsq]

SMU just got a commitment from one of the top 5 recruits in the country. I bet it doesn't move attendance up at all. The bottom of the AAC is horrible and in 2014 when Louisville is gone, they are a mid major in basketball.

They will likely be a 2-3 bid league because of UConn, Memphis, and Cincy the majority of the time so midmajor probably isn't fair but also isn't far off.

You forget Temple. As long as SMU has Brown the will recruit but I doubt the will be relevant for long.

In the bizzare word of statistics and RPI the AAC is basically assured 4 teams every year. With the 11* teams proposed. The AAC will post Louisville likely have Conn, Memphis, Cincy and Temple with 10 plus conference wins every year. add in 7-10 non con and you will have four teams year in year out with 20 plus wins, a decent RPI and some name brand. So year in year out you can expect about 4 teams from the AAC with the occasional 3 and very rare 5. While the bottom teams are clearly below BE level math will help the AAC's RPI numbers for the decent teams at the top.

*The AAC will likely not stay at 11. Navy is set to join for football only. This would allow for bball only school to be added. Most Likely Wichita State/ small chance VCU or some other more eastern school. If Navy does not join. Look for UMass to be added for all sports. Any option would put a 5th decent basketball school in there to help with the overall RPI numbers and basically guarantee 4 teams a year.

[yorost]

Sorry, but no conference with a significant, poor bottom is basically guaranteed four every year. Four worthy does not just translate to four in. One of the 'worthy' teams will (likely) do worst against the others, so a hefty conference record won't mean much for the team that couldn't make much of its quality victory opportunities. Resumes aren't about quality of team, but in what was proven on the floor over the year. Too many teams that are too weak means fewer quality victory opportunities while facing more opportunities for bad losses. A conference can land many teams every year when conference play is 'safest' from bad losses. Can they land four? Heck, they could land five with those eleven teams and things playing out well, but there's plenty of potential for it to be a slippery slope to bids in any given year.

It's no different than the Big East, we need to see how some things shake out over the next few years. Programs will rise, programs will fall, and conferences might go with them.

[Jet915]

Sorry, but no conference with a significant, poor bottom is basically guaranteed four every year. Four worthy does not just translate to four in. One of the 'worthy' teams will (likely) do worst against the others, so a hefty conference record won't mean much for the team that couldn't make much of its quality victory opportunities. Resumes aren't about quality of team, but in what was proven on the floor over the year. Too many teams that are too weak means fewer quality victory opportunities while facing more opportunities for bad losses. A conference can land many teams every year when conference play is 'safest' from bad losses. Can they land four? Heck, they could land five with those eleven teams and things playing out well, but there's plenty of potential for it to be a slippery slope to bids in any given year.

It's no different than the Big East, we need to see how some things shake out over the next few years. Programs will rise, programs will fall, and conferences might go with them.

I think the big difference though is how weak the bottom of the AAC is compared to the Big East. Our bottom is alot stronger and consists of few (Depaul and Seton Hall at this point) than their bottom (5-6 schools).

[yorost]

I meant only no different in needing to see some things shake out because there's been so much change. The primary argument on AAC (2014-) vs Big East is around the difference in quality of the lower half of teams.

[BillEsq]

Sorry, but no conference with a significant, poor bottom is basically guaranteed four every year. Four worthy does not just translate to four in. One of the 'worthy' teams will (likely) do worst against the others, so a hefty conference record won't mean much for the team that couldn't make much of its quality victory opportunities. Resumes aren't about quality of team, but in what was proven on the floor over the year. Too many teams that are too weak means fewer quality victory opportunities while facing more opportunities for bad losses. A conference can land many teams every year when conference play is 'safest' from bad losses. Can they land four? Heck, they could land five with those eleven teams and things playing out well, but there's plenty of potential for it to be a slippery slope to bids in any given year.

It's no different than the Big East, we need to see how some things shake out over the next few years. Programs will rise, programs will fall, and conferences might go with them.

Hmmmmm my mathematical foe....

Its all hypothetical. I was assuming that the 4 mentioned schools would still schedule a decent OOC and not resort to scheduling like southern miss.

Anyways what I should have said is that it doesn't matter. The BE and AAC are very different conferences. one is a soon to be 12 team conference based on football the other is currently a 10 team conference based on basketball. The odds are year in year out Teams like Temple, Cincy, Conn, and Memphis are year in year out likely NCAA teams. It wouldn't matter if they joined the Big Sky they would still each have a good chance of going every year. The BE just needs to worry about the BE and how to max their NCAA bids.

[BillEsq]

Sorry, but no conference with a significant, poor bottom is basically guaranteed four every year. Four worthy does not just translate to four in. One of the 'worthy' teams will (likely) do worst against the others, so a hefty conference record won't mean much for the team that couldn't make much of its quality victory opportunities. Resumes aren't about quality of team, but in what was proven on the floor over the year. Too many teams that are too weak means fewer quality victory opportunities while facing more opportunities for bad losses. A conference can land many teams every year when conference play is 'safest' from bad losses. Can they land four? Heck, they could land five with those eleven teams and things playing out well, but there's plenty of potential for it to be a slippery slope to bids in any given year.

It's no different than the Big East, we need to see how some things shake out over the next few years. Programs will rise, programs will fall, and conferences might go with them.

I think the big difference though is how weak the bottom of the AAC is compared to the Big East. Our bottom is alot stronger and consists of few (Depaul and Seton Hall at this point) than their bottom (5-6 schools).

Valid points The bizzare thing is that the BE teams may cannibalize each other with competitiveness while the AAC teams will bloat records on weak conference mates. Obviously if it came to a pick between an AAC school and a BE school it will likely depend on that schools performance in OOC. (not much different from any other year )

[yorost]

Its all hypothetical. I was assuming that the 4 mentioned schools would still schedule a decent OOC and not resort to scheduling like southern miss.

The problem is that just scheduling doesn't mean they all get what they need every year. Hard to pick a year and just assume any four teams will have a great OOC resume, as most don't schedule a lot of great games. It's not meant to be doom and gloom, good teams can get in, but this is sports and that bottom of the AAC means a good team can fall quickly without a lot of chances to recover.

Valid points The bizzare thing is that the BE teams may cannibalize each other with competitiveness while the AAC teams will bloat records on weak conference mates. Obviously if it came to a pick between an AAC school and a BE school it will likely depend on that schools performance in OOC. (not much different from any other year )

Just an odd look at it, if you ask me. I've never really seen that to be the case in NCAA resumes, why now? Overall conference performance builds the ability to get what teams need for a resume in conference. Teams trying to get in from shallow conferences face threats on their schedule, while teams trying to get in from deep conferences have opportunities. That cannibalism doesn't kill a deep conferences because somebody is winning, somebody will get a quality mark while the other gets an acceptable loss.

Beating weaker teams doesn't help resumes much at all. It can, but it really needs to be bloat, like dominating bloat. That's not easy for most teams, not even good teams. You throw enough weak teams at someone and they will lose. 8-2 vs sub 100 teams hurts a resume, but 3-6 vs top 100 helps (3-6 vs top 50 might even be gold for a resume).

[Bill Marsh]

I just can't take the AAC seriously. UConn, Memphis, Temple, and Cincinnati are quality programs, but after that it's pathetic. Just take the last 10 years as a reasonable sample. Of the other 7 teams that will make up the conference in 2014, only 3 have gotten even a single NCAA bid in the last decade - UCF (2), USF (1), and Houston (1). The other 4 have not received even a single bid amongst them. How bad is that?

The 4 worst teams in the Big East in terms of recent tournament success have all received bids in the past decade - Seton Hall (2), St. John's (1), Providence (1), DePaul; (1). They get dumped on all the time by those trying to disparage the Big East, but they are comparable to the middle group of the AAAC! The group I named above who each have one or two bids are the AAC's middle of the pack. SMU is getting a lot of hype these days because of the way that Larry Brown is recruiting. I'll wait and see how they do because other hyped teams have crashed and burned, but things certainly do look hopeful for them. Meanwhile these same folks hyping SMU ignore the fact that St. John's and Providence are loaded and should both have big years now - not a year or two down the road. That's 2 up and coming teams in the BE to one in the AAC. Meanwhile Temple is having trouble recruiting and Cincinnati certainly doesn't look like a world beater this year.

As for the middle of the pack in the Big East, I would identify the 2 teams who have not been to a Final Four - Xavier and Creighton - as the BE's middle of the pack. Creighton by itself has as many bids (4) as the 3 mid pack AAC teams that I listed above combined! Throw in Xavier with 8 and those 2 have triple the number of bids as the 3 mid pack AAC teams.

At the top of the conferences UConn stands alone, but Georgetown, Butler, Villanova and Marquette have all been to a Final Four in the past 11 years with Marquette coming off an Elite 8. Besides, UConn, the only other Final Four team in the AAC is Memphis and their 2008 Final Four was vacated for using an ineligible player. Cincinnati hasn't been to a final Four in the last 20 years and Temple in the last 50. In fact neither of them has even been to an Elite 8 in the past dozen years.

Regardless of whether we're comparing the top, middle, or bottom of the 2 conferences, there just seems to me to be no comparison other than UConn.

[BillEsq]

Marsh hit the nail on the head...

Once you get outside of the top 4 the AAC is well below the BE in quality.

on Brown... i myself am not impressed a pig in a dress is still a pig. SMU is a pig in basketball. He will move on sooner rather than later and SMU will not likely maintain anything that he gives them.

Yorost... obviously i'm not suggesting that simply having a high conference winning percentage will get a team in the NCAA. Any team will need to have quality wins to back up its record. Its likely the AAC 4 will have decent to good OOCs as in the past to balance up a weaker conference. Of Course a school with a lesser conference record will be considered if it is in a better conference. However it will also need a higher solid OOC to get it off the bubble. You can't just have a .500 record against good teams and get in. Likewise you can't just go southern miss on cupcakes and get in. OOC scheduling and performance will be a factor like it always is.

My point is still that Conn, Memphis, Cincy, and Temple regardless of your personal feelings for them are all year in year out strong contenders for the tournament regardless of what league they are in. To say that a league with those for will be lucky to get just 3 of them in is pretty unrealistic. Hey you know my feeling of the AAC. But the AAC is a football conference with a couple of decent basketball teams. No one is going to confuse the AAC with the ACC BIG SEC or BE. So why the comparisons?