When did the Big Ten...

[jdoggivjc]

True statement. Being the best conference means you have the best teams.... not necessarily the best players. Wisconsin is a great example of that... very solid team, very solid style of play, and next to nothing for NBA talent.

Wisconsin is proof that "system basketball" does work if done right. No argument that they play a very ugly style of basketball, but it's a style of ball that gets them to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament often. Just because McDermott didn't make it work here doesn't mean it's not effective. Whereas our great equalizer is three point shooting, their great equalizer is possession and superior defense.

[Ficklone02]

All I'm saying is the Big Ten isn't the greatest conference by far, the Mountain West has a better RPI than them...or wait is that another bull**** stat? Maybe you can come back with what the Sagarian and KenPom says and sound like a real Hok.

Quit being so desparate & immature. The Big X is good this year, just deal with it. jdogg has been on here forever, he's no Hawk fan.

[CyTwins]

Quit being so desparate & immature. The Big X is good this year, just deal with it. jdogg has been on here forever, he's no Hawk fan.

I never said the Big Ten wasn't good, I said I thought it was overhyped. Saying the % of people in your league that get in the tourney is a bull**** stat is being logical and mature?

[Cyclonestate78]

All I'm saying is the Big Ten isn't the greatest conference by far, the Mountain West has a better RPI than them...or wait is that another bull**** stat? Maybe you can come back with what the Sagarian and KenPom says and sound like a real Hok.

This year I think the argument could be made that they are the greatest conference by far but you also have to keep in mind that this is an unusually down year in college basketball across the country. Some of the top programs like Kansas, UCONN (ineligible), UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, etc... just aren't as good as usual this year. Then you have teams that are usually in the field for the NCAA Tournament that are way down or barely on the bubble like Wake Forest, Florida State, Maryland, Texas, West Virginia, Baylor, Villanova, Cincinnati, Purdue, Washington, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Xavier, and Temple. So all these teams are down this year and who has stepped up to replace them? Miami, Oklahoma State, and Oregon? The rest of the replacements are nothing better then potential bubble teams currently like Virginia, Ole Miss, Alabama, Arizona State, and Colorado.

Take notice... Regular solid NCAA Tourney teams that are outside looking in or out of the Tourney all together by conference....

Big XII- 3 teams
Big Ten- 1 team
Big East- 2 teams
ACC- 4 teams
Pac 12- 2 teams (they don't have many regular NCAA Tournament teams anymore to begin with)
SEC - 4 teams

[CYKOFAN]

The Big 10 deserves it's #1 ranking based on the pre-conference, but what really counts is NCAA tournament performance, and until the Big 10 starts doing better there, they don't deserve so much hype. They did better last year but overall it seems like the Big 10 usually hasn't done much as a conference in the tourney for at least the last decade. ESPN is going to look pretty silly if the Big 10 doesn't dominate in the tourney this year, and it rarely does.

[CyTwins]

The Big 10 deserves it's #1 ranking based on the pre-conference, but what really counts is NCAA tournament performance, and until the Big 10 starts doing better there, they don't deserve so much hype. They did better last year but overall it seems like the Big 10 usually hasn't done much as a conference in the tourney for at least the last decade. ESPN is going to look pretty silly if the Big 10 doesn't dominate in the tourney this year, and it rarely does.

I agree 100%. My personal opinion is it's overhyped. Obviously teams like Illinois and Minnesota aren't the teams they were during non conf but the only way we'll find out how legit they are is when NCAA tourney comes around. It'd be great to see more teams go farther in the Big 12 with less teams in our conference

[Tre4ISU]

Their big bonus this year was having so many teams ranked so high at the beginning. When they get into conference play, a loss is easily dismissed by how tough the rest of the conference is, "looked, we're all ranked." I do think it's a very good conference, don't get me wrong, but over-all the conference was a bit over-rated early, which is keeping them up there now.

I almost get a feeling it's kind of a gimme for them from the sports writers, they feel so bad about how ****** their football is, they give them this little boost during basketball season. Hell, with all the teams they are adding, maybe they are trying to become the next Big East and they are just going to give up on football all together.

The Big Ten is far and away the best, deepest conference in basketball. It isn't close. I think OSU would be in the top 2 of this conference and they would perhaps win it. Some of you are calling MSU good when they just laid the wood to UM, and have been playing arguably as well as anyone in the country as of late. They have won 11/13 with the two losses to IU by 4 and 5 points.

Also, in regards to football-That ****** conference took away two of their better teams, bumped everyone up at least one bowl and was still very very competitive.

[BigBake]

ESPN has a vested interest in pimping the big 10. Thats all you need to know. They were also imho behind the realignment fiasco. They wanted the cash cows in the big 12 to move so they could get a piece of the pie.

[Tre4ISU]

The Big 10 deserves it's #1 ranking based on the pre-conference, but what really counts is NCAA tournament performance, and until the Big 10 starts doing better there, they don't deserve so much hype. They did better last year but overall it seems like the Big 10 usually hasn't done much as a conference in the tourney for at least the last decade. ESPN is going to look pretty silly if the Big 10 doesn't dominate in the tourney this year, and it rarely does.

IMO, you can take the NCAA tournament and throw it out the window in determining what conference/teams are the best. If you haven't noticed, that tournament is crazy. It is essentially like taking the top 40 football programs and throwing them into a tournament, except the talent is even more parallel. It's about matchups and often about who is on/off. I'm not going to take one game and get rid of the whole season's body of work. If Indiana get's knocked in the Sweet 16 are they not a top 8 team? Sure they are.

[VeloClone]

Conversely, when a conference sends 90% of its teams to a bowl for the first time in college football history, the media takes little notice or sometimes even bashes that conference for not being very good.

Well it's easy to rack up wins and get bowl eligible when you play one more conference game and one less non-con game then pretty much everybody else...what?...wait a minute...I think I'll have to think this through some more.

[CyTwins]

IMO, you can take the NCAA tournament and throw it out the window in determining what conference/teams are the best. If you haven't noticed, that tournament is crazy. It is essentially like taking the top 40 football programs and throwing them into a tournament, except the talent is even more parallel. It's about matchups and often about who is on/off. I'm not going to take one game and get rid of the whole season's body of work. If Indiana get's knocked in the Sweet 16 are they not a top 8 team? Sure they are.

So what should we use? Just go with whatever the media says?

[Tre4ISU]

So what should we use? Just go with whatever the media says?

I don't know, perhaps the 32 or so games each team plays before it is in a one loss and you're out tournament. I love March Madness as much as any sporting event all year but it's not an effective measure in finding the best team over the course of the season. There are very few tournaments that actually do that on a consistent basis. There's no fix to it, which is fine. The best part of March Madness is the 2 seeds getting beat by the 15s.

[CyTwins]

I don't know, perhaps the 32 or so games each team plays before it is in a one loss and you're out tournament. I love March Madness as much as any sporting event all year but it's not an effective measure in finding the best team over the course of the season. There are very few tournaments that actually do that on a consistent basis. There's no fix to it, which is fine. The best part of March Madness is the 2 seeds getting beat by the 15s.

So determine how good a conference is as a whole by what they do when they were are playing each other?

[Cyclonestate78]

The Big Ten is far and away the best, deepest conference in basketball. It isn't close. I think OSU would be in the top 2 of this conference and they would perhaps win it. Some of you are calling MSU good when they just laid the wood to UM, and have been playing arguably as well as anyone in the country as of late. They have won 11/13 with the two losses to IU by 4 and 5 points.

Also, in regards to football-That ****** conference took away two of their better teams, bumped everyone up at least one bowl and was still very very competitive.

Michigan State has won something ridiculous like 18 of their last 20. While I still hate everything about MSU and Izzo nobody can deny that they are one of the best teams in the country this year.

The score of their game against Michigan is deceiving... 75-52.... It isn't often that you can see a 23 point loss and say that the score actually made that game look closer then it actually was.

[michaelrr1]

So determine how good a conference is as a whole by what they do when they were are playing each other?

There's this thing called nonconference games that have been played this year. Look it up.