SEC Tournament running thread

Edit: Well, the inability of my computer to log on here without the help of instantunblock.com sure made my attempt at humor look clumsy with all the extraneous slashes.

 

Sorry, I was applying the SEC football argument to college basketball. I thought SEC backers would understand that logic.

Also, do you believe the top eight teams in the SEC (Fla, Vandy, Tenn, UK, MSU, Ark, Bama and Ga.) are better than the top eight of the Big East (G'town, Lou, Pitt, ND, Cuse, Marq, WVU and DePaul)? If so, why?

 

You know, I was ready to admit the Big East was the better conference ... then I took a quick trip to collegerpi.com. And much to my surprise, they suggest ...

1. ACC, .5827. Average non-conference SOS rank, 7. Average non-conference RPI, 2.
2. SEC, .5824. Average non-conference SOS rank, 2. Average non-conference RPI, 1.
...
...
...
5. Big East, .5593. Average non-conference SOS rank, 14! Average non-conference RPI, 7.

Average ranking of members: SEC, 54; Big East, 84. Median ranking of SEC members, 53; Big East, 63.

So maybe you can explain to us fanboys how the Big East is supposed to be a better conference.

 

I've been away for a couple of days, but to respond to fenian, I was in no way saying that Duke wouldn't be in. That was my was of saying that UT is every bit the tournament lock Duke is, and if you look at the resumes, the Vols should have at least the same seed number.

 

That's where you're wrong. I'd rather UK avoid the whole coaching change thing, though I'll admit it will add some excitement to 2007-2008 covering UK knowing how many people will be calling for Tubby's head, given the fact that they're going to be an otherwise boring and bad team unless they somehow snag Patterson and Lucas and teach the then-senior class how to win.

And FWIW, UK may be proof this season that RPI is worse than the BCS, since UK is ranked in the top 15. Bias or not, I think it's obvious that UK isn't a top 15 team, and you'd be hard-pressed to prove that they're a top 40 team. UK hasn't beaten a single good team at full strength, and their RPI is grossly inflated because they played a tough OOC schedule (UNC, IU, UofL, UCLA, Memphis).

I'm not going to go as far to say that UK is in the NCAAs because they're UK, because Arkansas made the tournament. But I will say that if UK hadn't beefed up their OOC schedule, they probably would have been very nervous tonight around 6 PM.

Regardless, it's a moot point, because they likely won't be around for the second weekend for the 5th time in Tubby's 10 seasons. You can hate on UK fans all you want for being upset about that, but I'm not sure they shouldn't be upset over being an 8-seed two years in a row with little to no hope of making the Sweet 16.

I'm in the camp that thinks UK would be better served with a new coach, and I'm hardly alone. Several journalists have acknowledged Tubby's problems, and his hard-headedness when it comes to fixing them, in the past few weeks.

 

Not sure you have correctly identified the top eight teams in each league, if you didn't include Ole Miss at the expense of Georgia or Villanova at the expense of, ugh, DePaul.

But let's tip it up and see, based on your own lineup and ESPN's RPIs:

Florida (7) beats Georgetown (9) SEC leads 1-0
Vanderbilt (45) loses to Louisville (37) Tied 1-1
Tennessee (12) loses to Pittsburgh (5) BEast leads 2-1
Kentucky (13) beats Notre Dame (31) Tied 2-2
Mississippi State (65) loses to Syracuse (50) BEast leads 3-2
Arkansas (35) loses to Marquette (22) BEast leads 4-2
Alabama (46) beats West Virginia (57) BEast leads 4-3
Georgia (64) beats DePauil (66) Tied 4-4.

 

If your defense of the SEC revolves around the RPI, I'd work on getting a new argument. The RPI has been assailed recently for being an outdated indicator.

But since that's the ranking you're using, we'll use that. If the Big East's non-conference rankings are so bad, then how does it get to be ranked so high overall? Obviously, it's because of the caliber of schools within the conference. Why should Big East schools play killer non-conference schedules when they play the toughest conference schedules?

And the SEC benefits in your averages and medians because it has fewer teams. That's a problem with the Big East and it skews its data.

So let's do away with the averages and look at the who's ranked where:

Rank School Record RPI SOS SOS RPI Polls
5 Pittsburgh 25-6 0.6450 8 0.5948 12 12
7 Tennessee 22-9 0.6401 4 0.6099
9 Florida 26-5 0.6376 44 0.5636 5 4
11 Kentucky 20-10 0.6335 1 0.6261
17 Georgetown 23-6 0.6220 33 0.5700 9 10
18 Villanova 20-9 0.6166 7 0.5952
24 Marquette 22-8 0.6077 16 0.5795 20 21
33 Notre Dame 23-6 0.5963 115 0.5188 22 17
37 Vanderbilt 19-10 0.5913 18 0.5783 19 23
42 Louisville 21-8 0.5891 42 0.5641 16 19
43 Alabama 20-10 0.5889 47 0.5629
48 Arkansas 18-12 0.5842 12 0.5869
49 Syracuse 21-9 0.5839 49 0.5624

The Big East has more schools in the Top 50 than the SEC. And of the Big East schools listed only Notre Dame played a "soft schedule." So what made their strength of schedule improve?

I won't disagree that the Big East isn't hurt by the likes of South Florida and Rutgers, which bring down its overall rankings. But even with warts like that, the teams in the upper echelon and middle tier are by far better. Give UConn an SEC schedule and they go 10-6, maybe better. In the Big East, they struggled against superior talent. It's not that the Huskies were bad this year, it's that most of the teams in the Big East were better.

Now, I will say this about SEC basketball. It has improved by leaps and bounds from where it was when I was a kid. It used to be UK and nine teams that cared more about football. That changed when expansion took place and Arkansas revived its program under Nolan Richardson. A number of other schools have seriously stepped up their programs. Basketball is no longer an afterthought in the SEC, but it's not quite as powerful as the Big East.

 

According to the AP article, in the eyes of the selection committee, the thing that really hurt the Big East and Syracuse by extension was the unbalanced schedule.
That's the Big East's fault, but I don't know why they do it that way.

 

The current Big East schedule can be flawed. It's 16 games, you don't play two teams and you play three twice. Syracuse played St. John's, UConn and Villanova twice (teams that finished 11, 12 and ninth respectively). The Orange missed out on Seton Hall and West Virginia. That means they played all the NCAA teams at least once and played 11 of the 12 schools that advanced to MSG. Seems odd that the unbalanced conference schedule would be the 'Cuse's downfall.

There's been talk of changing it, and hopefully they will. Possibly to an 18-game schedule where you'd play all 15 conference foes and three repeats. Still won't be even, but it will be better. The repeats are supposed to be geared toward TV matchups and rivalries.

 

To try to get around the RPI factor, I went and replayed my little scenario from above using Sagarin's Predictor.

BEast wins 7-1.

 

Back to the thread topic. Did Stan Heath save his job by getting in today, or was he safe for one more year under Broyles anyway?