Tough Conferences

[themistocles]

This morning, I took a look at current standings in some conferences and one can only conclude that some conferences are tougher than others. I only note the More "Powerful" conferences below, but there are others. Note, I am not commenting on those below Mid Major

VERY TOUGH
Big East - 7 teams with records between 8-3 and 7-4 (Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Pitt, Louisville & Connecticut) and two more at 7-5.

Big 12 - 5 teams between 8-3 and 7-4 (Kansas, Kansas St., Okla St., Okla, Baylor)

Atlantic 10 - 6 teams between 7-2 and 6-3 (VCU, St. Louis, Butler, LaSalle, Xavier & Massachusetts, plus Charlotte at 6-4.

SOMEWHAT LESS TOUGH, but STILL COMPETITIVE
Pac 12 - 3 teams at the top twixt 8-3 and 9-3 (Oregon, Arizona & UCLA)

Big 10 - 2 teams tied at 10-2 (Indiana & Mich St), with Wisky (8-3) the only team within 2 games, although Michigan (8-4) and OSU (7-4) only slightly behind Whisky.


SEEMINGLY LESS TOUGH CONFERENCES
ACC - 1 team well ahead of the rest - Miami (11-0), with only Duke (9-2) and Virginia (8-3) are within very distant reach.

SEC - 1 team well ahead of the rest - UF (10-1), with only Ky and Bama (8-3) within 2 games, although 2 more (Missou and Ole Miss) are at 7-4 and within 3.

[SmootyGator]

I don't see how you can judge how tough a conference is by their conference records...

[themistocles]

Originally Posted by SmootyGator

I don't see how you can judge how tough a conference is by their conference records...

I mean Internally TOUGH, not necessarily Nationally TOUGH.


Sorry I didn't make that clear.

By including the Atlantic 10, I thought it should have been pretty clear, however.

[InstiGATOR1]

Originally Posted by themistocles

I mean Internally TOUGH, not necessarily Nationally TOUGH.

Sorry I didn't make that clear.

By including the Atlantic 10, I thought it should have been pretty clear, however.

I have been thinking about this in terms of the SEC and I think you are ignoring one of your rules. You did not throw out the outliers. So if you throw out the top team and the two equal bottom teams, the SEC has 11 teams separated by 5 games. The Big East has no upper outliers, but has 3 bottom outliers and thus has 12 teams separated by 4 games.

Since what you are trying to get at I think is how tough are your conference games are game in and game out and you using range as your measure, I think tossing outliers is a good in this case. And once you toss the outliers the Big East is no more tough than the SEC INTERNALLY.

[themistocles]

Originally Posted by InstiGATOR1

I have been thinking about this in terms of the SEC and I think you are ignoring one of your rules. You did not throw out the outliers. So if you throw out the top team and the two equal bottom teams, the SEC has 11 teams separated by 5 games. The Big East has no upper outliers, but has 3 bottom outliers and thus has 12 teams separated by 4 games.

Since what you are trying to get at I think is how tough are your conference games are game in and game out and you using range as your measure, I think tossing outliers is a good in this case. And once you toss the outliers the Big East is no more tough than the SEC INTERNALLY.

Excellent point Insti, so, I was not really addressing how "Tough a conference is overall," but rather, "How Tough it is to win the Conference Regular Season Championship."

That was the way that I should have started the thread.

Your points are excellent, but, in fact, what I was driving at was toughness to win the championship.

Whoops!!!

[Noahtogo24]

Just my opinion for the bcs conferences:

Tier 1:
Big Ten
Big East

Tier 2:
ACC
SEC
Pac 12
Big 12

[themistocles]

Originally Posted by Noahtogo24

Just my opinion for the bcs conferences:

Tier 1:
Big Ten
Big East

Tier 2:
ACC
SEC
Pac 12
Big 12

One could certainly make an argument like that. It looks like, at this point in the season, that the ACC has 1 very strong team (Miami), and perhaps one or two pretty good teams. The Big 10 appears to have four or perhaps as many as six pretty good teams, I am not sure any are outstanding, perhaps Indiana or Michigan State, or Michigan???. The Big East may have 6 high end teams, but, if that is so, it suggests that the SEC's Top team is as good as, if not better than any of them (recall, that without either Wilbekin or Prather, the Gators were leading one of the top Big East teams Georgetown at halftime, and, without Prather, they absolutely wasted Marquette, who is tied for first place). The SEC appears to have 1 strong team, and possibly another reasonably good team (perhaps not, however). The Pac 12 appears to have 3 roughly equal teams at the top, with the Big 12 having 3 to 5 roughly equal teams at the top. I don't think any of those would qualify as Very Strong, however.

Once again, my point was not the quality of Conferences relative to each other, but how difficult it appears winning the Conference Regular Season Championship is likely to be.

I seriously don't think one can overemphasize the importance of Home Court Advantage in Conference Basketball.

[InstiGATOR1]

Fair enough then in fact removing the upper outliers would throw away the information you need. You also should maybe have looked at the percentage of team within say 3 or 4 games of first. Let's make it 3:

ACC: 3 of 12 or 25%.
A10: 10 of 16 (go figure?) or 63%
Big East: 10 of 15 or 67%
Big12: 7 of 10 (go figure?) or 70%
Big10: 5 of 12 (go figure?) or 42%
MWC: 6 of 9 or 67%
PAC12: 8 of 12 or 67%
SEC: 5 of 14 or 36%

This also give you are ranking rather than just categories. So from most internally competitive to least internally competitive this ranks the conferences:

1. Big12
2-4. Big East, MWC, PAC12
5. Big10
6. A10,
7. SEC
8. ACC

[GatorLurker]

I think that the term "tough" in the present context means "competitive for the regular season championship". In that event please remove the ACC from the discussion. They do not recognize a regular season champion.

[GatorsGators]

I agree with Lurker that "competitive" is a better word for this than "tough." The SEC would be far more competitive if we weren't in it, but I wouldn't call that theoretical conference tough under any circumstance.

As for the toughest conferences, Noah's list looks right. You can throw the A-10 and Mountain West in that tier 2 as well.