Power Six Conference

[GoldenWarrior11]

https://sports.yahoo.com/college-basketball-where-postseason-expansion-to-68-teams-has-not-worked-out-050258159.html

Article from Pat Forde on whether the expansion to 68 teams is beneficial for the NCAA Tournament, long-term. I thought this passage was interesting:

"Of the 32 additional at-large bids, 18 (56.3 percent) have gone to teams from Power Six conferences. Over the same eight years, overall bids have been awarded to Power Six teams at a rate of 51.1 percent. That number is increasing the past two seasons — 55.9 percent of bids in 2017 went to teams from the big six, and 54.1 percent last year.

The rationalization for that increased percentage has been the upward mobility of some basketball-first schools into the Power Six, most notably programs like [i]Xavier, Butler and Creighton. While that's true, the overall percentage of Division I teams in the Power Six has stayed pretty steady over eight years, between 20.8 percent and 21.5."[/i]

It's interesting because 1) the Big East has not once marketed or branded itself as a power conference, unlike another conference; it has won on the court, received strong fan support and had the postseason success in March. 2) for all of the marketing and advertising campaigns by another league, even five years into it, it still has not acquired universal acceptance from the media and networks. 3) Even in a down year, by previous standards set by the league, the conference appears very safe among college basketball's elite, and receives high praise from the media and networks alike. I think the league is past the "prove it" phase since reorganizing, and truly just focus on being the best it can be.

[stever20]

https://sports.yahoo.com/college-basketball-where-postseason-expansion-to-68-teams-has-not-worked-out-050258159.html

Article from Pat Forde on whether the expansion to 68 teams is beneficial for the NCAA Tournament, long-term. I thought this passage was interesting:

"Of the 32 additional at-large bids, 18 (56.3 percent) have gone to teams from Power Six conferences. Over the same eight years, overall bids have been awarded to Power Six teams at a rate of 51.1 percent. That number is increasing the past two seasons — 55.9 percent of bids in 2017 went to teams from the big six, and 54.1 percent last year.

The rationalization for that increased percentage has been the upward mobility of some basketball-first schools into the Power Six, most notably programs like [i]Xavier, Butler and Creighton. While that's true, the overall percentage of Division I teams in the Power Six has stayed pretty steady over eight years, between 20.8 percent and 21.5."[/i]

It's interesting because 1) the Big East has not once marketed or branded itself as a power conference, unlike another conference; it has won on the court, received strong fan support and had the postseason success in March. 2) for all of the marketing and advertising campaigns by another league, even five years into it, it still has not acquired universal acceptance from the media and networks. 3) Even in a down year, by previous standards set by the league, the conference appears very safe among college basketball's elite, and receives high praise from the media and networks alike. I think the league is past the "prove it" phase since reorganizing, and truly just focus on being the best it can be.

I think it's really a matter of which media member you look at... I mean you look at lists of mid majors who can make noise, and You have Nevada, Gonzaga, Buffalo, Wofford, etc. on there..... But no mention of the AAC. The AAC has clearly elevated themselves into at worst a tweener situation now. They are going to get at least 3 bids this year, and could easily get 4 if Temple can win 2 more games this year. Heck, 5 would not be impossible if Memphis won the AAC tourney(and frankly maybe even just make the title game). And that was in what was supposed to be a down year for the league.

I think for the Big East, next season OOC is going to be really important. The league has got to show that this season was a fluke. The OOC this year put too many teams behind the 8 ball heading into conference play.

[Xudash]

Good find.

Totally agree.

Those anxious days following the conference's reboot have given way to a solid conference that happens to enjoy a lot of mutual respect among its members. You don't always find that in other conferences, to say the least.

[MullinMayhem]

Should be really strong conference next year. Nova and Marquette should be ranked again and teams like PC, Xavier, and Creighton should be better. G'Town may compete for 3rd place and hell they may even end up ranked too if one of their bigs turns out to be solid.

[Redmen23]

G'town should be close to the top. Yurtseven combined with those young guards and LeBlanc, look out.