Strength of Schedule for the Championship Teams

There was a question raised about the margin of victory of championship teams verses the quality of competition they faced throughout the year. Here are the rankings based on how the RPI calculates the strength of schedule(SOS).

2004 UConn (11th)
2003 Syracuse (10th)
2002 Maryland (6th)
2001 Duke (4th)
2000 Michigan St. (11th)
1999 UConn (19th)

As you can see the schedules above weren't the easiest in the nation. Anything in the top 10 should be considered very tough. Anything in the top 25 should be considered a quality schedule as well.

How do the 3 teams in question stand as of 2/24?

North Carolina 24 (78 non-conference)
Boston College 29 (76 non-conference)
Illinois 47 (51 non-conference)

As you can see they have not played the toughest schedules in the nation so far. One interesting point though is that one or two games against a dog can bring down an otherwise quality schedule. Just ask Illinois and Wake Forest about what the game against Longwood did both to their SOS and their RPI score. Wake Forest won yesterday and dropped 4 spots in the RPI below Boston College who lost.

Of course all 3 team's SOS will improve once both the conference tournaments and NCAA tournament start.

At the end, Illinois and North Carolina will both be in the top 20 in SOS (assuming they make a deep run) and will have a high margin of victory (15+). Actually North Carolina will most likely hit the top 10. Boston College will be in the top 10 in SOS (assuming they win a few tournament games as well) and will have a low margin of victory in the 6 to 8 point range.

So here is more fuel to add to the debating fire. It doesn't change my initial analysis though. North Carolina and Illinois are the cream of the crop and Boston College is not in the same league as them.