What's Your Ideal New Conference?

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

In theory? Maybe, but when 7/9 Big East teams or 7/10 Big Ten teams made it was the team that finished 8th in each instance robbed? I'd say no. Much more risky to be in a lesser conference where one bad game in the conference tourney could cost you a bid.

Absolutely correct. I'd much rather be in a premium conference than a weaker conference.

But, if you extrapolate to the 10,000th degree, then he has a point.

My point is not to debate his theory, but rather the idea that it could actually happen.

It just can't happen in the real world.

[brewcity77]

I don't think we have seen it in practice(as you correctly point out), but in theory, this conference would have problems:

True, but as you also point out, in the real world this hasn't been an issue. This league is going to have some down teams, and even if they move up in the pecking order, others will replace them because most teams naturally go through up and down cycles (look at 'Nova).

Either way, even if we added Xavier, Butler, VCU, Gonzaga, and Creighton (arguably the 5 best programs strictly in terms of basketball) to Marquette, Georgetown, and Villanova (the 3 most consistent C7 teams) you still have Providence, DePaul, and Seton Hall at the bottom with St. John's probably the one most likely to fight their way from the bottom to the top. I think 8 bids would be possible from that league, and if one of the teams at the bottom wanted a place at the table, then do it by climbing over one of the teams at the top.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

True, but as you also point out, in the real world this hasn't been an issue. This league is going to have some down teams, and even if they move up in the pecking order, others will replace them because most teams naturally go through up and down cycles (look at 'Nova).

Either way, even if we added Xavier, Butler, VCU, Gonzaga, and Creighton (arguably the 5 best programs strictly in terms of basketball) to Marquette, Georgetown, and Villanova (the 3 most consistent C7 teams) you still have Providence, DePaul, and Seton Hall at the bottom with St. John's probably the one most likely to fight their way from the bottom to the top. I think 8 bids would be possible from that league, and if one of the teams at the bottom wanted a place at the table, then do it by climbing over one of the teams at the top.

Yea, I don't see this as an issue for the C7 at all.

I'm merely pointing out that Equalizer's theory isn't wrong, but rather it's not really possible in the real world, and definitely won't happen to the C7.

And, whatever new conference is formed, I would expect an avg. of 4 bids per year. In a particularly good year you might get 6, and in a down year you might just get 2.

It's not unlike the Pac12, which can look really good some years (Oregon, Arizona, UCLA, A. State, Cal.), but can look pretty bad in some other years (like last year).

There will be some ups and downs.

[Norm]

Majority of these teams have had better success than Marquette over the last decade in March.

Momentum with consistent winning is the only label you should concern yourself about.

Here's the post-season record of the teams in March this past decade:

Marquette: 2 NITs, 8 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 1 Elite Eight, 3 Sweet Sixteens (10 NCAA wins)
Georgetown: 3 NITs, 6 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 1 Elite Eight, 2 Sweet Sixteens (7 NCAA wins)
Villanova: 2 NITs, 7 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 2 Elite Eights, 4 Sweet Sixteens (12 NCAA wins)
Seton Hall: 3 NITs, 2 NCAAs (1 NCAA win)
St. John's: 2 NITs, 1 NCAA (0 NCAA wins)
Providence: 3 NITs, 1 NCAA (0 NCAA wins)
DePaul: 3 NITs, 1 NCAA (1 NCAA win)

Xavier: 0 NITs, 9 NCAAs, 2 Elite Eights, 5 Sweet Sixteens (14 NCAA wins)
Butler: 0 NITs, 1 CBI, 6 NCAAs, 2 Runner ups, 2 Final Fours, 2 Elite Eights, 4 Sweet Sixteens (15 NCAA wins)
Gonzaga: 0 NITs, 10 NCAAs, 2 Sweet Sixteens (10 NCAA wins)
VCU: 2 NITs, 1 CBI, 5 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 1 Elite Eight, 1 Sweet Sixteen (7 NCAA wins)
Dayton: 4 NITs, 3 NCAAs (1 NCAA win)
St. Louis: 2 NITs, 1 CBI, 1 NCAA (1 NCAA win)

[dwaderoy2004]

Happen to know Creighton's numbers?

That list makes it pretty clear that we want Xavier, Butler, Gonzaga and VCU.  I would venture to guess Creighton would compare favorably as well.  Those are the 5 I have been campaigning for.  SLU is such a bad program.  Dayton isn't much better.

Edited:  Here's Creighton: 4 NITs, 1 CBI, 5 NCAA's (2 wins)

[frozena pizza]

I would like the set up below.  You play each team in your division twice and the teams from the other division once for a 16 game schedule.  In that scenario, we would have 6 games against teams in our division currently in the AP top 20, plus Xavier which is usually pretty good.  DePaul is DePaul, but that's a solid schedule for RPI purposes.

East:
1.   Georgetown
2.   Villanova
3.   Seton Hall
4.   Providence
5.   St. John's
6.   VCU

West:
1.   Marquette
2.   DePaul
3.   Butler
4.   Xavier
5.   Creighton
6.   Gonzaga

[dwaderoy2004]

The west division is stacked.

[Galway Eagle]

Yeah... Those divisions look like the sec football divisions in terms of power

[frozena pizza]

But it's a purely geographic breakdown.  The relative strength of those teams will ebb and flow.

Both SEC divisions have 3 teams in the top 10 of the BCS by the way.  Pretty balanced.

[Norm]

I would like the set up below.  You play each team in your division twice and the teams from the other division once for a 16 game schedule.  In that scenario, we would have 6 games against teams in our division currently in the AP top 20, plus Xavier which is usually pretty good.  DePaul is DePaul, but that's a solid schedule for RPI purposes.

East:
1.   Georgetown
2.   Villanova
3.   Seton Hall
4.   Providence
5.   St. John's
6.   VCU

West:
1.   Marquette
2.   DePaul
3.   Butler
4.   Xavier
5.   Creighton
6.   Gonzaga

Sign me up. If we can't get Gonzaga, put St. Louis in for them.

[Avenue Commons]

Here's the post-season record of the teams in March this past decade:

Marquette: 2 NITs, 8 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 1 Elite Eight, 3 Sweet Sixteens (10 NCAA wins)
Georgetown: 3 NITs, 6 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 1 Elite Eight, 2 Sweet Sixteens (7 NCAA wins)
Villanova: 2 NITs, 7 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 2 Elite Eights, 4 Sweet Sixteens (12 NCAA wins)
Seton Hall: 3 NITs, 2 NCAAs (1 NCAA win)
St. John's: 2 NITs, 1 NCAA (0 NCAA wins)
Providence: 3 NITs, 1 NCAA (0 NCAA wins)
DePaul: 3 NITs, 1 NCAA (1 NCAA win)

Xavier: 0 NITs, 9 NCAAs, 2 Elite Eights, 5 Sweet Sixteens (14 NCAA wins)
Butler: 0 NITs, 1 CBI, 6 NCAAs, 2 Runner ups, 2 Final Fours, 2 Elite Eights, 4 Sweet Sixteens (15 NCAA wins)
Gonzaga: 0 NITs, 10 NCAAs, 2 Sweet Sixteens (10 NCAA wins)
VCU: 2 NITs, 1 CBI, 5 NCAAs, 1 Final Four, 1 Elite Eight, 1 Sweet Sixteen (7 NCAA wins)
Dayton: 4 NITs, 3 NCAAs (1 NCAA win)
St. Louis: 2 NITs, 1 CBI, 1 NCAA (1 NCAA win)

Xavier's post-season record over the past ten years is extraordinarily impressive. I knew it was good, but 5 Sweet 16s out of 9/10 appearances in a decade is remarkable.

[Galway Eagle]

But it's a purely geographic breakdown.  The relative strength of those teams will ebb and flow.

Both SEC divisions have 3 teams in the top 10 of the BCS by the way.  Pretty balanced.

Sorry was actually going for basketball there Florida, Kentucky, vandy (till this year), and mizzou kinda trumps the other division

[chapman]

Yeah... Those divisions look like the sec football divisions in terms of power

Which also looked like SEC basketball divisions in terms of power imbalance, which is why they scrapped them.

[dwaderoy2004]

Sign me up. If we can't get Gonzaga, put St. Louis in for them.

NOOOOOO!  St. Louis is a terrible, awful basketball program. 

[dayton flyers]

Just lobbying for Dayton here.

In the early 90's, Dayton left the MCC for the Great Midwest, both conferences that Marquette was once a member of.  Dayton did terribly in the Great Midwest, winning 1 conference game in 2 years.  Dayton then joined the A10.

Dayton fired Jim O'Brien, who took the program to its lowest ever level, hired Oliver Purnell, and Purnell brought the program back to respectability.  Purnell 9 years, 2 NCAA's, 3 NIT's.  Purnell left for Clemson and is now at DePaul.

Brian Gregory was supposed to elevate the program, but IMO he did not elevate the program, instead the program pretty much treaded water.  Gregory elevated recruiting, but he couldn't put it all together.  Gregory did very well out of conference, but he struggled a lot in the A10.  IMO, Gregory refused to adjust his game plans/schemes to combat A10 teams that knew exactly what he was going to do.  Out of conference opponents were surprised by Dayton's athleticism.  Gregory 8 years, 2 NCAA's, 3 NIT'S.  But, Gregory did win the NIT in 2010.

IMO, our current coach Archie Miller is going to do better than either Purnell or Gregory and take UD to new heights.

[tower912]

I vote for the Flyers. 

[dayton flyers]

I vote for the Flyers. 

Thanks, we need all the votes we can get!

[chr31ter]

Second, its obvous to anyone who actually followed Wainwtigh's hiring was that the potential competition in the Big East scared away a number of better qualified coaches for DePaul.

No.

DePaul felt stung by Dave Leitao.  They had given him a huge (by their standards) contract extension after he took them to the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament.  A year later, Leitao was off to Virginia, with very little warning.  This was the first time in the school's history that they'd been treated as a stepping stone.

Their problem was that rather than going out and getting the next Leitao, they went out and looked for someone who saw DePaul as a destination.  Therefore, bring in the middle-aged, Chicago guy who everyone liked and who remembered the school's glory days.  The only person from that search who withdrew his name was Brian Gregory.

It was a tremendously conservative hire that the school still hasn't recovered from.

[The Equalizer]

In theory, though that theory didn't hold up when the ACC got 6/8 (75%) teams in in 1989 or the Big Ten got 7/10 (70%) teams in 1990 or when the Big East got 7/9 (77.8%) teams in in 1991 or 11/16 (68.8%) in 2011.

If we add Xavier, Butler, and Creighton, could we see a year where 7/10 make the dance? Definitely possible. I think there's a very good chance we could put 6/10 in every now and then. And if we add two more and go to 12, could we get 8 bids? Not at all unthinkable.

If we add to the bottom to artificially inflate the top teams, what does that really do for them? Give them a false sense of superiority? No one needs that. We need the best teams possible to build the best league possible. If that means some deserving teams get missed every now and then, so be it. That already happens every single year on Selection Sunday. Better to have more quality than less.

Okay--so across six major conferences between 1989 and today--78 opportunities--you've found four instances where the NCAA went exceptionally deep in a conference.  

I went back over the 7 years we've been in the Big East--and looked at how many teams on average make the tourney--and I did the same for the six power conferences.

On average--across the six major conferences--only 45.1%.  231 appearances out of 512 possible opportunities.

Big Ten has been historically the best (52%), the SEC worst (39%).   But nobody has come close to approacing 60%.

I'll admit that it is *possible* that once in a great while, significantly more than 50% of the teams in any given league will make the touranment.  

But we're probably going to be at the lower end of the scale.  No matter who we add, we aren't going to be as strong at the top as the other conferences because we have no Kansas, no Kentucky, no UNC or Duke, no Ohio State or MSU, no Pitt, Syracuse, or UConn to anchor the top of the league.    

[Dawson Rental]

Okay--so across six major conferences between 1989 and today--78 opportunities--you've found four instances where the NCAA went exceptionally deep in a conference. 

I went back over the 7 years we've been in the Big East--and looked at how many teams on average make the tourney--and I did the same for the six power conferences.

On average--across the six major conferences--only 45.1%.  231 appearances out of 512 possible opportunities.

Big Ten has been historically the best (52%), the SEC worst (39%).   But nobody has come close to approacing 60%.

I'll admit that it is *possible* that once in a great while, significantly more than 50% of the teams in any given league will make the touranment. 

But we're probably going to be at the lower end of the scale.  No matter who we add, we aren't going to be as strong at the top as the other conference because we have no Kansas, no Kentucky, no UNC or Duke, no Ohio State or MSU, no Pitt, Syracuse, or UConn to anchor the top of the league.     

What gets a league 50%+ NCAA invites isn't the strength at the top of the conference, its the strength in the middle of the conference.

[Pakuni]

What gets a league 50%+ NCAA invites isn't the strength at the top of the conference, its the strength in the middle of the conference.

Exactly.
Memphis, Gonzaga and Butler haven't exactly lifted the middling teams of C-USA, the WCC and the Horizon, respectively, into position where they're competing for tourney bids.
The A-10 ... without a Kansas, Kentucky, etc. - got four bids last year.
The SEC ... with a Kentucky and a Florida -got four.
The ACC ... with a Duke and a UNC - got five.

[Aughnanure]

NOOOOOO!  St. Louis is a terrible, awful basketball program. 

They're fine. More than likely they'll get in over a VCU, so you should probably get used to them.

[dwaderoy2004]

They're fine. More than likely they'll get in over a VCU, so you should probably get used to them.

They're not fine.  They have made 1 NCAA tourney in the last 10 years.  They don't have any fans, as evidenced by their terrible attendance numbers.  And the only thing they had going for them recently passed away.   

Hopefully this is the 12th team we're talking about and have already added Gonzaga, Butler, Xavier and Creighton.  At that point, I'd rather have VCU, St. Mary's, St. Joe's, Dayton, and probably even George Mason before I'd want SLU.

But yes, I understand they will probably be in this conference.  But I refuse to like it.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Okay--so across six major conferences between 1989 and today--78 opportunities--you've found four instances where the NCAA went exceptionally deep in a conference.  

I went back over the 7 years we've been in the Big East--and looked at how many teams on average make the tourney--and I did the same for the six power conferences.

On average--across the six major conferences--only 45.1%.  231 appearances out of 512 possible opportunities.

Big Ten has been historically the best (52%), the SEC worst (39%).   But nobody has come close to approacing 60%.

I'll admit that it is *possible* that once in a great while, significantly more than 50% of the teams in any given league will make the touranment.  

But we're probably going to be at the lower end of the scale.  No matter who we add, we aren't going to be as strong at the top as the other conferences because we have no Kansas, no Kentucky, no UNC or Duke, no Ohio State or MSU, no Pitt, Syracuse, or UConn to anchor the top of the league.    

There is a problem in your logic:

The teams that weren't making the tournament weren't victims of their conference or their schedule. They were victims of not being very good at basketball.

DePaul hasn't made the tournament in a number of years. That's because their players are bad, and their coach was/is average.

If you are bad, you are bad. Doesn't matter what conference you play in. Things like RPI and strength of schedule are evaluated for this very reason.

[Aughnanure]

They're not fine.  They have made 1 NCAA tourney in the last 10 years.  They don't have any fans, as evidenced by their terrible attendance numbers.  And the only thing they had going for them recently passed away.   

Hopefully this is the 12th team we're talking about and have already added Gonzaga, Butler, Xavier and Creighton.  At that point, I'd rather have VCU, St. Mary's, St. Joe's, Dayton, and probably even George Mason before I'd want SLU.

But yes, I understand they will probably be in this conference.  But I refuse to like it.

I'm so sick of the "that team is bad now therefore they will be bad in perpetuity." St. Louis is a nice add b/c they're a larger private school, have the resources to support athletics, have a 10,000 seat on campus arena, have a good market (yes, they does matter) and fit perfectly into the geographic layout of this conference.

George Mason? Really? Gross. St Mary's facilities are pathetic. St. Joe's is pointless w/ Villanova. VCU is 33k public school that just doesn't fit/match with ANY other schools.