2019 Big East: First 10+ Team Conf Ever w All 500 Or Better

[adoraz]

Houston (basketball) and UCF (football) are currently the biggest teams in that conference. They are literally on the opposite side of the country. If you browse any message board for any of our teams, you won't see a team like Houston mentioned any more often than a random team like TCU or Iowa. On Redmen, the only AAC team discussed is UConn as we share recruits and a history with them.

AAC is having a decent year, but they are no longer a rival due to geography. Had UConn remained a blue blood, had Temple swapped Titles with Nova, had Cincy made a few deep runs in the Tournament, THEN there would be some sort of rivalry due to proximity and history.

As it stands, they are a Southern conference focused on football and we are a Northern/Midwestern conference focused on basketball.

The only true threats to the Big East are the ACC/B1G, as they tried to steal MSG. Fortunately, we don't need to worry about that anytime soon.

[thebigeXpress]

The AAC doesn't matter to us. Our primary goal after realignment was to be viewed as an equal to the P5 in basketball. We've done that. There's always going to be haters that try to downplay us but the simple fact remains that we've been treated as their equal by: P5 teams, P5 Conferences, exempt-tournaments, most media outlets, and the NCAA Tournament selection committee. I wouldn't say that the AAC is there yet, but it's clearly a goal of theirs (though secondary to being considered a P5 equal in football) and if they get there - good for them. It isn't a zero-sum game between these two leagues. The animosity between the two leagues is just a stupid little "rooting for your ex to fail" complex that somehow still exists 6 years later.

My animosity towards the AAC is only driven by one person - Stever. Otherwise, they are completely irrelevant to me.

I agree. I really don't focus on the AAC any more than the MAC or the Big West. It's not like northeastern sports pages are casually dropping stories about the AAC. I'm positive that SMU and Tulsa fans rarely if ever think about Providence. I actually like the teams in the AAC*. I totally root for them** vs the B1G, ACC, etc. And what's there not to like about Taco Fall or Fran Dunphy? I like Houston's history. I'm just freakin sick of Stever constantly talking about them. Some obsessive compulsive stuff going on with him.

* Wichita and UConn fans are kinda douchey.
**UConn for obvious historic reasons i don't always root for.

I like Taco Bell too but not during lent.

[ProprietyofLeyluken]

The AAC has been solid. Keep in mind they’re biding their time till UConn, Memphis, and Wichita State get their 2019 classes. Hardaway is already has the #6 class and word is he’s got a couple more big fish on the line.
They also have their TV contract about to come in.
That being said, people are talking about their lowest teams and those teams are about to get paid a lot by the standards around here.
For this year, Tulane and ECU are serving their purpose. They’re absorbing losses to improve their distribution. You want teams like DePaul to LOSE. When DePaul beats teams like St John’s that hurts the conference.
The AAC has had a better year than the Big East because they have a much better win to loss distribution. They’ll get higher seeds and better opportunity. It doesn’t help this conference to get these low seeds.
It doesn’t help this conference to have such a homogenized group of teams. Perception is bad.

[JPSchmack]

JP Schmack and MPWalsh8 hit the nail on the head...every league NEEDS some bottom feeders. DePaul is not the doorstop anymore...which is good to great for some, but not for the league.
(while this is NOT an expansion thread,) JP's much maligned proposition to add a couple of bottom teams to boost the middle is appropriate. It is not good to only have the top 2 teams with winning conference records. Having a top 2 and piddling 8 is not a good look...for the public or the committee.

As for optimal bids relative to #of conf members, JP did the math on that as well, please refer to any of the many expansion threads and find JP's comments. Maybe he will be nice enough to refresh your memory with a new post?

Wow, it’s nice to be remembered for something. But yeah, THIS Big East season is exactly what I was talking about. The Big East has 10 ridiculously close teams just wailing the tar out of each other. It’s entertaining, but not an ideal ratio for maximizing NCAA bids.

Think about this: Everyone has a conference record that doesn’t preclude them from getting an NCAA bid. All over .500, 7-11 St. John’s presumably dancing. And there will be FEWER bids than the last four years.

It’s because the bottom got better… at the expense of someone else.

Your bottom went 14-40 to 11-43 in BE play in each of the last four years. This year they were 21-33. So teams 3-7 are 8 to 10 wins short of last year. Hence less bids. Conference play is a zero sum game. You’re going 90-90 combined. Someone’s got to lose and when no one is losing more than 11, this is what you get.

Having a couple of sad sacks is indeed good. You just don't want them to be the same teams every single year. They don't have to become powers, but you'd like for them to cycle to the "high middle" every 5-6 years, and maybe sneak into the tournament. Likewise, you'd like your middle teams to hit the top 20 every 5-6 years as well as regularly being in the top 50-60, with an occasional rebuilding year, where they replace a sad sack for a season. Makes for a healthy league.

Right. But all 10 of you are prestigious programs who’ve been powers in the past and can easily be a power again. Your standings are dictated by “Who’s slightly better this week?”

The extreme opposite example: The West Coast Conference. Gonzaga No. 1, Saint Mary’s/BYU (one bubble, one NIT). Three mediocre teams (one CBI/CIT bid), and four teams will be terrible.

I’m not saying the BE needs terrible teams like those bottom four. I’m saying that SEPARATION is good.

BYU/SMC are going to go 12-2 at worst against “The Bottom” of the WCC. The BE has no bottom. 3-10 is all middle. So DePaul is playing 16 Q1/Q2 conference games instead of going 12-2 like BYU/SMC.

Would a SLU and/or Dayton in the league this year increase the likely number of bids we will have seen? What about a Duquesne? I'm honestly not sure.

Nah, Dayton is one of you infrastructure wise. They’d be another 7-11 or 8-10 team. Just more whooping on each other.

Duquense this year? Yes. Absolutely. 0-8 vs Q1/Q2. They’d be looking at 2-16 in the Big East at best. St. Bonaventure was the same (but had a terrible OOC due to injuries).

Bona 3-15 BE, Duquesne 2-16 BE. That makes the rest of you 103-77 instead of 90-90. PLUS 4-2 in the BET entering the quarters instead of 2-2. So 105-79 instead of 92-92. That could put Creighton (21-12), Georgetown (21-11), Xavier (20-12) on the bubble headed into the BE Quarterfinals.

[GumbyDamnit!]

With all of these excuses about why parity is a bad thing in a 10 team conference, we only need to take a quick look at the current bracketology page on ESPN. Big12 currently projected for 8 bids and several teams with top 4 seeding. So with all due respect about “we need to add bad teams” to be successful, I say: “what an inherently stupid idea!” Not to sound all Steverish, but maybe if our teams (Nova included) had taken care of business better in the OOC, then this wouldn’t be an issue.

[JPSchmack]

With all of these excuses about why parity is a bad thing in a 10 team conference, we only need to take a quick look at the current bracketology page on ESPN. Big12 currently projected for 8 bids and several teams with top 4 seeding. So with all due respect about “we need to add bad teams” to be successful, I say: “what an inherently stupid idea!” Not to sound all Steverish, but maybe if our teams (Nova included) had taken care of business better in the OOC, then this wouldn’t be an issue.

You’re not “wrong.” But that’s also the quick, easy response. It drives me nuts when the A-10 fans use it, because in 40 years, we've actually done it maybe 3 times. It's insane to expect it when you're 3-37 at it.


But if you break it down, the only real difference in 2018 vs 2019 OOC for the Big East was you didn’t match your INSANE record away from home vs 100-200 teams.

You went 17-2 last year away from home vs that group. Including 7-1 in true road games. That's .900 basketball.

That’s beyond ridiculous. The whole reason the NCAA went to this “Quad System” for grouping wins was because statistically, #50 at home is an easier game than #125 on the road.

Throw in the fact that you went 7-1 in true road games. The Big XII, your peer, went 2-1. (Those with the most money make the rules!). It was a formula for success you couldn’t repeat.

Which makes it very much like the A10 example above. You wouldn’t expect the A10 to win 90% of their games.

So why would you expect to win at a 90% clip away from home against teams like those again, when the B10, SEC, ACC, B12 this year only won 72% (not counting the Pac-12, who is garbage) ? You wouldn't. You'd adjust your scheduling accordingly.

[stever20]

With all of these excuses about why parity is a bad thing in a 10 team conference, we only need to take a quick look at the current bracketology page on ESPN. Big12 currently projected for 8 bids and several teams with top 4 seeding. So with all due respect about “we need to add bad teams” to be successful, I say: “what an inherently stupid idea!” Not to sound all Steverish, but maybe if our teams (Nova included) had taken care of business better in the OOC, then this wouldn’t be an issue.

Lets look at Big 12...
They do have 8 right now.
Texas Tech 3 MW
Kansas 4 E
Kansas St 4 S
Iowa St 7 S
Baylor 8 W
Oklahoma 10 W
Texas 11 E
TCU 12 MW FF

3 are top 4 seeds- but none on top 2 lines.

Texas almost certainly has to beat Kansas to just make the tourney. 16-16 team isn't making it.
TCU has to beat Oklahoma St to just make the tourney.

So come next Sunday, things could look a whole hell of a lot different....

The reason the Big 12 was able to do that wasn't OOC play. Their OOC play they went 100-30. Big East went 94-32 vs D1. So not much of a difference...

But in the round robin Big 12 had teams win 14/14/12/10/9/8/7/7/5/4 games. So had 4 winning teams. The 4 winning teams are projected as 3/4/4/8 seeds. Then they got lucky that the 9 win team was Iowa St, who had gone 11-2 OOC with a fairly decent OOC schedule. Then the 8 win team was Texas who went only 8-5 OOC but had 2 top 11 wins OOC(and even they're no where near safe). And then the 2 7 win teams both go 12-1 OOC.

The Big East had parity. The Big 12 did NOT have parity.

[GumbyDamnit!]

With all of these excuses about why parity is a bad thing in a 10 team conference, we only need to take a quick look at the current bracketology page on ESPN. Big12 currently projected for 8 bids and several teams with top 4 seeding. So with all due respect about “we need to add bad teams” to be successful, I say: “what an inherently stupid idea!” Not to sound all Steverish, but maybe if our teams (Nova included) had taken care of business better in the OOC, then this wouldn’t be an issue.

You’re not “wrong.” But that’s also the quick, easy response. It drives me nuts when the A-10 fans use it, because in 40 years, we've actually done it maybe 3 times. It's insane to expect it when you're 3-37 at it.


But if you break it down, the only real difference in 2018 vs 2019 OOC for the Big East was you didn’t match your INSANE record away from home vs 100-200 teams.

You went 17-2 last year away from home vs that group. Including 7-1 in true road games. That's .900 basketball.

That’s beyond ridiculous. The whole reason the NCAA went to this “Quad System” for grouping wins was because statistically, #50 at home is an easier game than #125 on the road.

Throw in the fact that you went 7-1 in true road games. The Big XII, your peer, went 2-1. (Those with the most money make the rules!). It was a formula for success you couldn’t repeat.

Which makes it very much like the A10 example above. You wouldn’t expect the A10 to win 90% of their games.

So why would you expect to win at a 90% clip away from home against teams like those again, when the B10, SEC, ACC, B12 this year only won 72% (not counting the Pac-12, who is garbage) ? You wouldn't. You'd adjust your scheduling accordingly.

I'm having some difficulty trying to understand the point you are trying to make as it seems you are comparing BE and B12 in 2018, not this year. If I'm wrong I apologize.

Here's what I see...

- If Nova doesn't lose at home to Furman and @ Penn, they are probably a Top 15 team. So the 5 teams that beat them would have gotten a bigger bump.
- Can't complain much about MU's OOC; good job by them
- G'town beats Cuse and SMU, they are probably in today and they are closer to 50 than 75
- SHU had a pretty solid OOC; the loss at home to SLU and at Neb. isn't great but I can't understand how they are in the 60's Net with wins vs. UK and @ MD, vs. Nova and MU. But again had other teams been higher, SHU's victories over them would have meant more
- Creighton: other than Clemson, when faced with decent opportunities for solid wins OOC, they came up short. It doesn't help that Ohio St, Nebraska and OU have all finished on the bottom halves of their leagues; but any one of those would have put Creighton in a much better position on the bubble
- X: this is probably the team that we needed to go 4-14. They just couldn't get anything going OOC. So the hole they dug themselves in to start was really deep. And the wins (or lack of wins for their opponents) hurt the conference overall. Can't blame X for that but that's probably the reality.
- SJU- now that they've had a pedestrian conference schedule, the poor OOC competition may hurt them; VCU looks better now but GT, Cal and Rutgers are all poor major conference teams so those wins mean less.
- PC - Wich St. & UMass losses hurt; @BC is OK but BC is the DePaul of the ACC (no offense Demon fans)
- DePaul - ND, BC and NW are all bottom dwellers of their conferences; enough said. Like X it probably would have been better for the league (considering their OOC) if DePaul had a few less conference wins
- Butler: Dayton, SLU, FL, IU; win 2 of those and Butler could be on the bubble.

So again, I think we have ourselves to blame.

[scoscox]

- X: this is probably the team that we needed to go 4-14. They just couldn't get anything going OOC. So the hole they dug themselves in to start was really deep. And the wins (or lack of wins for their opponents) hurt the conference overall. Can't blame X for that but that's probably the reality.

We really didn't have that bad of a non-conf. We lost 4 games, but none were bad losses. (Auburn, wisconsin, sdsu, uc). probably should've won sdsu and had a shot to beat auburn and wisconsin. obviously, we'd like to be better and it's not our usual standard, but we didn't have the worst non-conference performance in the league by any stretch

[scoscox]

As far as the larger discussion goes, we knew this was going to be a down year and it's basically played out how we expected. We'll probably get 4 bids at the worst and possibly 5 if things fall a certain way. Not bad. I hate this stupid narrative of "you need a couple shitty teams to beat up on". No you don't. It doesn't help you get bids and it hurts the league. It's a good thing that depaul is improving. This is just a down year, not indicative of anything wrong with the league. Next year we will be all the way back and this stupid narrative will die off again.