Big Ten was “Terruble” as Chuck says this year. Sure 2 teams left and there is a lot of “Terruble” to go around, but I have a hard time stumping for Nebby to get in,
So what do people think of BIG getting only 4 teams in dance?
- Thread starter hdhntr1
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I think terrible is a bit overstated with Michigan blowing out a TAMU team that just blew out North Carolina. And Penn State just beat Notre Dame and Marquette on the road to get to the NIT semis. Fact is, there is a lot of parity in college hoops this year, and on any given night....well, we've seen what Loyola is doing in the Dance this year...and yes, Northwestern is still the last team to beat the Wolverines.
Totally agree. There are a handful of teams that are clearly above the rest, but the difference between the 10th and 50th best teams in the country is not that large.
Never said sucks. Just 10th place 3 times in 5 years, 9th once, and 160th in the country with all his own players. But if you’re convinced, far be it for me.....
6th best statistically. Weak by every historical measure (I.e. not a “weak” conference, weak vis a vis almost every other Big 10, which is usually a top 5 conference).
Was the Big West the second best conference last year because Gonzaga was runner up?
As for beating both those teams, that’s great. Personally I think most people would prefer to not finish 10th and 160th.
5 years, his roster, ONE top 100 win? If your excited by that, cool.
if the results of a handful of postseason games (one of which is the NIT) for 2 teams drastically changes your season long opinion of a 14 team conference then you are probably overreacting to a small sample size. PSU and Michigan's deep runs are great, but what about somebody like MSU flaming out early when they were the highest ranked team in the conference? Doesn't that equally count towards your opinion?
You keep going to RPI. Well, the only stat that matters right now is that the BIG is 13-4 postseason, best among all major conferences Does that mean it was the best league this year? No, but maybe a bad November kind of skewed things. I'll bet Virginia or UNC would have traded a loss or two back then for their March embarassments. And Penn State not being a top 100 team is LAUGHABLE after what they just did, beating a higher rated ACC team and Big East team on the road and then routing both opponents at the NIT Final Four. And they did it without their big center (who did play against NU). Keep looking for ways to denigrate the Cats and Coach Collins, though. I'm sure you can find something because that's what you are all about.
MSU didn't lose by 20 to a 16-seed like Virginia or by 20 to a middling TAMU like UNC did. The BIG had a terrible November, no doubt, but I think, in the end, March counts a whole lot more in most people's minds.
That's what makes the whole selection process so arbitrary and why there will ALWAYS be arguments about who should have got in, the best conference, etc. The Big Ten gets four teams in, two make the Sweet 16, and one is still going in the Final Four. The SEC gets eight teams in and none make it past the Sweet 16. ACC was likely the best conference all year and had no teams advance past the Elite Eight. Big 12 gets three teams into the Elite Eight, but only one makes it past that round. And so on...I think the one thing we can establish is the Pac 12 was bad.
A lot of it is matchups in the tournament, and I think it's become increasingly clear that there are a handful of teams at the top (some aren't even playing anymore), and then the difference between the next 50-75 teams isn't all that much. What Penn State did in the NIT is hardly a surprise. That's a team that when they got going could beat almost anyone on a given night. They had a really strong starting five with a good amount of experience. They absolutely could have made some noise in the tourney...but also could have lost in the 1st round as well.
Just take Loyola for example. An incredible story, one that is still going, as they are one of four teams that still has a game on the schedule. But they were one 30 footer from being out in the 1st round...then one crazy fortunate bounce from being ousted by Tennessee...Look at Duke. Allen's shot at the end of regulation against Kansas did everything but go in. That goes in, they are in the Final Four. Instead it doesn't, one guy for Kansas goes off in OT, and they move on. And from that, Duke's season is seen as a disappointment.
Stories get written by results, but so often results are hanging by a thread. One weird bounce changes the outcome and ultimately the narrative. People lose jobs over weird bounces...people also get huge raises, extensions, and new jobs because of those same weird bounces. All the more reason to look at things objectively and enjoy the fact that you can just watch as a fan and enjoy the ride.
Well, tell me how often a 10-11 team from Power 5 conferences sniffs the NCAA title. How did Chicago-Loyola's schedule match up with some of these teams this year? I'd much rather get more variety by picking a top team out of one of the other conferences. If I want to see 15 ACC teams duke it out, I'll watch the ACC tourney. If your conference is getting 7-8-9 teams in the NCAA, you really have little gripe if you don't make the tournament. Think it's too tough, find another conference.
Well, Syracuse proved the doubters wrong. Boeheim outcoached Izzo today and somehow pulled out the win. Might be time for old Tom to hang it up.
Syracuse's zone is always tough to crack when you don't play against it much. They were mediocre in the ACC not only because the league has a lot of talent, but because league members have had several years to play against the zone and figure out how to beat it. They had a nice tourney, but it was a questionable call to put them there in the first place. I agree Izzo might be fading, but I wouldn't base it on one game. Northwestern beat Michigan this year, but they look pretty good at the moment. I do think MSU underperformed this year, even with a relatively gaudy record, because a lot of those games were cliffhangers. They just weren't putting teams away like a team with their talent should have. Unlike some of the commentators, I never thought they were much of a threat to win the tournament after watching them this year. Always thought Purdue (before the Haas injury) and Michigan were the best bets out of the B1G for the final four.
We certainly have gotten a lot of press due to beating Michigan. I don't know how many time I have heard over the air waves that the last time Michigan lost it was to Northwestern. In hindsight that was our hoops "bowl" game.
Well the question was - should you have to have a winning record in conference to be an at-large invitee, so not sure what your point is about that.
But I agree with everything you say. I think it’s also really unfortunate that regular season one or two bid leagues decide their automatic berth by tournament. That can be 4 months of effort gone in 3 days for one simple reason $$$$$$.
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We can rank conference strength alphabetically or by latitutude or however you want. The rpi is THE go-to stat used by the committee, so that’s what people use. Maybe in the catreporter power index you have the rpi 160 team at #7 nationally, I don’t know. That’s fine.
As for it being laughable that PSU is not a top 100 team, you do realize that’s not me deciding that right? On selection Sunday when the committee was poring over our resume they would have seen one top 100 win. Not because mysticcat “felt” that way, but because those are the facts. As the kids say now, “That”s a thing.”
Pointing out our 3rd 10th place finish and a 160 rpi his only year with all his guys, (to go with a 9th in 5 years) is not “denigrating” anybody or anything, it’s simple facts. Math doesn’t denigrate, it just is.
For the record, I think the arena and recruiting could turn this around in the next few years.
If you and HDHNTR have all these wild ass theories about how the Big gets snubbed every year, keep em coming.
Remember we got a very controversial NIT snub a few years ago? (Weren’t in the next 20 out of the NIT, and they STILL didn’t invite us!)
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I will agree with you on the small-conference tournaments. I live close to Mount St. Mary's, which is in the Northeast Conference, one of the lower-rated Division I conferences, and their champion seems to get tripped up in the tournament almost every year. Wagner has lost twice as regular season champion and this year the tourney winner was Long Island, which was fourth in the league during the regular season. A couple of years back the Mount won the league and was upset in the tourney. Leagues such as this that have little chance of winning in the tourney (basically none until this year's UMBC upset) shouldn't be handcuffing themselves by not sending their best to the tournament. I've always had a problem with any league that designates its tourney winner the league champion. To me, the outfit that wins the regular season is the league champion. Win the tourney, and you're the tournament champion. Of course it was the ACC that started all the tournament stuff years ago.
The Mount, like a lot of other small colleges, got caught in a bind years back when the NCAA went to a different divisional setup and some of their traditional opponents went Division I, basically leaving them with the choice of being a possible Division II power or joining a relatively weak Division I league. They chose the latter. They had been a small-school power for years under Jim "Bow Tie" Phelan. I got to interview him a couple of times — class guy and a great coach. He got to lead the Mount to their first couple of NCAA appearances before he retired. They drew Kentucky, so were out quick.
Yes.
And Monmouth got a pretty harsh snub despite doing exactly what the previous committee said to do - play tough teams on the road.
That several teams with losing conference records and less than 20 wins were taken above say NEB with a 13-5 conference record and over 20 wins?
If you're going by RPI, Penn State was #77 on Selection Sunday, which gives NU two top-100 wins this year, the other being Michigan.
The way Penn State played those last two games in the NIT, I would have given them a shot at just about any team in the country, and they played the whole tourney without Watkins, one of the league's better big men.
It's a fact the Big Ten is 13-4 in the postseason so I guess BIG teams improved as the season went on while some other league's teams regressed.
That's true, but remember only five of the 14 B1G teams were participating. If they'd had 7-8 teams in the NCAA like some of the conferences, the record wouldn't have been so impressive. It's great to have multiple teams as a conference, but it also sets you up for a lot of failure.
(Oops. Nebraska went out of the NIT so quickly I forgot about them, so it actually was six teams in postseason.)
Ye
Yeah, and the Missouri Valley is undefeated too. Guess that makes them the best conference......ever.....ever........
The Big Ten had one of its worse years in history. In that year, we finished 10th among that lot.
But I agree, Big Ten teams improved and other teams regressed????
Wow.
Yeah, and the Missouri Valley is undefeated too. Guess that makes them the best conference......ever.....ever........
The Big Ten had one of its worse years in history. In that year, we finished 10th among that lot.
But I agree, Big Ten teams improved and other teams regressed????
Wow.
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This is the frustrating thing. We could’ve/should’ve been good. When things clicked, we could complete with good teams. But things rarely clicked. Ultimately, we went 1-8 vs. NCAA Tournament teams and 1-3 vs. NIT teams. Regardless of what Michigan does in the coming days, only 2 solid wins over the course of an entire season in which we were ranked pre-season Top 25 isn’t much to hang our hats on.
