Is the ACC Overrated? (the Big East as well?)
This is probably one of the most debated questions in college basketball by its fans. Arguments usually fall into two camps. The first camp is ACC fans and the East Coast media. They argue that the ACC is the best conference and no one is close to matching up to it. The second camp is everybody who is not an ACC fan. They are sick of hearing about the ACC. The second camp will agree that North Carolina, Wake Forest and Duke are good (there will be arguments about how good) but they think that the rest of the ACC teams would get beat no matter what top conference you put them in.
To determine how good the ACC is I will compare the four conferences that are slated to get the most Tournament bids. The conferences are the ACC, Big 12, Big East and Conference USA. The records below only deal with non-conference games. It didn't make sense to reward a conference for playing games against itself.
The top 25 and 100 teams are based on the RPI numbers.
| Top 3 Teams | Bottom Teams | All Teams | ||||
| Conference | vs Top 25 | vs Top 100 | vs Top 25 | vs Top 100 | vs Top 25 | vs Top 100 |
| ACC | 2-1 (.667) | 5-1 (.833) | 5-4 (.555) | 20-15 (.571) | 7-5 (.583) | 25-16 (.610) |
| Big 12 | 5-4 (.555) | 18-4 (.818) | 1-2 (.333) | 11-16 (.407) | 6-6 (.500) | 29-20 (.592) |
| Big East | 0-3 (.000) | 13-3 (.813) | 1-5 (.167) | 18-16 (.529) | 1-8 (.111) | 31-19 (.620) |
| Conference USA | 0-3 (.000) | 8-4 (.667) | 1-8 (.111) | 14-27 (.341) | 1-11 (.083) | 22-31 (.415) |
There are some interesting details when looking at the chart above. First the ACC top dogs do not play a lot of quality competition out of conference. However they do win the games they play. The only loss is to Illinois. You can't dock any team for a loss at Illinois.
The second item you notice is that the Big East and Conference USA cannot beat the top competition. I was particularly surprised about the Big East numbers.
The ACC definately has the best teams top to bottom. Look at the record vs the Top 100. Only the ACC and Big East have a winning record. If you dig into the numbers further you see that they bottom part of the ACC has a winning record vs the Top 25 with 9 games played as well. No conference is even close to that. The bottom of the Big East and especially Conference USA are terrible against the Top 25.
Looking at the numbers above the ACC is clearly the best. To what degree they are the best is debatable. Unfortunately, they have earned the respect they get.
posted by Big D @ 8:23 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I'm a little confused by your numbers. You have the top three teams in the ACC at 2-1 against nonconference RPI top 25 opponents, but I know that Duke has wins over Oklahoma (14) and Michigan State (18), Wake Forest has wins over Arizona (8) and Cincinnati (17), and North Carolina has a win over Kentucky (10), plus Wake's loss to Illinois (2).
You are correct the top teams are now 5-1 against the Top 25. What a difference a weekend full of basketball makes in the RPI numbers. The top dogs also gained a bunch of Top 100 victories as well.
The numbers in the article were as of Saturday 2/26.
UNC beat UConn and Vermont in addition to Kentucky. These numbers seem way off...even if they are from last week.
I don't think the numbers add up either...i know that Nova beat Ucon when they were #1, and then Ucon just beat Nova when they were #2? I also think that the conferences (Big East and ACC), are no were close to the same level of competition in league play. How many teams are ranked in the top 10 in the ACC? and then in the top 25? Unfortunately you have a team like Louisville Cinci,Syracuse, that may not even make the tournament because they have to play too many IN CONFERENCE games against tough opponents. Bet the ACC gets at least 5 or 6 teams in the tourney in March. DO THEY DESERVE IT?
I don't think the numbers add up either...i know that Nova beat Ucon when they were #1, and then Ucon just beat Nova when they were #2? I also think that the conferences (Big East and ACC), are no were close to the same level of competition in league play. How many teams are ranked in the top 10 in the ACC? and then in the top 25? Unfortunately you have a team like Louisville Cinci,Syracuse, that may not even make the tournament because they have to play too many IN CONFERENCE games against tough opponents. Bet the ACC gets at least 5 or 6 teams in the tourney in March. DO THEY DESERVE IT?
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