MADNESS: One BIG Conference Stands Out in NCAA Tournament

BIG EAST threatens to run away with the NCAA Tourney again

The Big East is threatening to run away with the NCAA tournament again for the 2nd year in a row, as it’s already off to a 6-0 start. That’s better than any conference and far better than all other conferences except one. For example, the 6-bid Mountain West had 4 teams bounced by the end of the opening round, and only got a single team out of the opening weekend. The 8-bid SEC had 5 teams lose via upsets in the opening round to lower seeds. 4 of them were bad upsets by double-digit seeds including the loss by 3-seed Kentucky. They got only got 2 of their 8 teams (25%) out of the opening round, and have a losing record, while the Big East got 100% of its teams into the Sweet 16 and have a perfect, undefeated record.

Scroll below to see the records of each multi-bid conference in this year’s tourney, last year’s and both years combined. By all 3 measures, the Big East is ahead of all other conferences, and it’s far ahead of most of them. If this year’s Big East teams continue to perform well, and the Big 12 continues to underperform, the Big East may well repeat last year’s feat of being the best conference in the country for the year.

How this affects Georgetown and other Big East teams

This supports the claims of many Big East fans, coaches and players who say the conference deserved 4 or 5 bids. There are multiple reasons for fans of Big East teams to want the league to get many bids and also to do well in the tournament:

1) It’s used as one of the key measures for how good a conference is compared to others. Many recruits want to play in one of the top conferences.

2) All Big East schools get solid annual revenues based on how many wins the league gets in the tourney, and they don’t lose any money if a team loses in the tourney. If St. John’s or Seton Hall got in and won 2 or 3 games, all Big East teams would get a cut of that. The Big East being 6-0 already is providing free money to Georgetown and the rest of the Big East for years to come.

3) It helps the schools that get bids in their recruiting, which is important in maintaining the quality and competitiveness of the league. Most coaches and schools are judged by recruits based on how consistently they get their teams into the dance. For example, a coach and team that reached the dance 3 of the past 6 years (50%) are viewed more favorably than ones that reached it 2 of the past 6 (33%).

4) To some degree it also helps the teams that didn’t get bids in their recruiting, by telling recruits that they’ll get to play games against many tourney teams.

5) It helps all teams recruit players by pointing out that the league regularly gets a high number of bids, and that if the Big East school you go to has a good season, they should get a bid. Seton Hall going 13-7 in league and not getting a bid is not a good message for recruits of any Big East team.

Reasons why the Big East deserved 5 bids

This is not an exhaustive list, and primarily focuses on some things I haven’t seen so far on most websites. Last year UConn was tied for 4th in the Big East at 13-7, which means they were also tied for 5th. There were 3 other teams ahead of them in conference and another team on par with them. Nevertheless, they won the national championship and destroyed every team they played.

That was strong proof that the Big East is a brutal conference to play in, and that the 4th place team should almost always get a bid unless they have a losing record. The 4th place team should definitely get a bid if they go 13-7 like Seton Hall did this year. Of course I’m not saying the Hall this year was as good as UConn was last year. But they achieved a huge accomplishment in the latter 2/3rds of the season that was on par with what national champion UConn did last year in the latter 2/3rds.

UConn’s average margin of victory in its last 8 tourney wins is 22 points. 6 of those games were after the opening round. After crushing Northwestern, UConn coach Dan Hurley said: “Seton Hall beat us by 15. We’ve won 8 straight in this tournament, all by significant margins, and they were good enough to beat us. There should have been 5 or 6 Big East teams in this tournament.” In accomplishing that, Seton Hall outperformed UConn’s average NCAA opponent by 37 points.

Besides that massive upset, Seton Hall beat Marquette, Villanova, Providence, St. John’s twice and Butler twice. Those wins were between great and good because St. John’s deserved a bid, and Villanova and Providence were just one win (and only several points) shy of a bid. All of them are signature wins except Butler, which are still pretty good wins. Butler beat 6-seed Texas Tech, 10-seed Boise St., California, Penn State and East Tennessee in OCC play and lost by only five points to 8-seed FAU in Orlando, which was kind of a home game for FAU. East Tennessee was one point shy of making the tourney, as they lost in OT to Samford, which should have upset 4-seed Kansas in the first round if not for a terrible call at the end.

Butler also beat Marquette, Creighton, Providence and Villanova. Butler’s OOC performance was on par with most of the last 10 at-large teams to get bids. Roughly mid-way through the season they were widely forecast to be a 10-seed. If they didn’t play in a lethal conference and instead played in the Mountain West, SEC, ACC, AAC or Atlantic 10, they probably would have racked up enough wins to get a bid. Thus, Seton Hall’s two wins over Butler were also good quality wins. That the 8th-best team (and 4th-worst team) was as strong was Butler is more evidence of how tough the Big East is.

Further evidence is the Big East had 3 teams in the top 10 of the country. That is more than any other league. The Mountain West’s best team was only #20. The Big East had more teams in the top 10 than the Mountain West had in the top 25.

Another major point is the Big East had 9 teams in the top 70 of the NET rankings. That’s 82% of its teams. In comparison, the Big 10 and the SEC had only 8 of their 14 teams (just 57%), the Mountain West had only 6 of its 11 teams (just 54%), the ACC had only 8 of 15 (53%) and the Pac-12 only 50%. Only the Big 12 was better than the Big East, and only by a little at 86%.

Also consider that Georgetown basically beat 9-seed TCU and NET #124 Notre Dame, and lost to #84 Syracuse (5th place in the ACC) and #103 Rutgers. We essentially were 2-2 against P-6 conference teams in the OOC. Inside of the ACC, Notre Dame beat Clemson, Wake Forest, Virginia and Virginia Tech, and only barely lost to Syracuse, NC State and two close game to BC. However, Notre Dame did worse than us in OOC going 5 – 6, including 3 bad losses to Western Carolina and Citadel by double-digits and also to us. Counting the TCU game fairly, we were 8-3 in the OOC, and had only 1 bad loss to Holy Cross (and only by 1 point).

Notre Dame had 0 good wins and 0 solid wins, while we had 1 good win over TCU and 1 solid win over Notre Dame. In fairness, ND played a tougher OOC. But to account for that, we’ll subtract 2 of their losses … plus we’ll also subtract 2 of our wins. Even with that, we’re still ahead of them at 6-3 versus 5-4. That indicates we likely would have done as well as ND did in the ACC and finished 7-13 there and with a NET close to ND’s 124. It also means a major reason Georgetown went 2-18 in conference was due to how brutal the Big East was. We were .500 against P6 teams out of conference, but only .100 against the Big East. Our winning percentage against non-Big East P6 teams was 500% higher.

Records of each conference this year and last

For all conference that got more than 1 bid this year, here are their tournament records this year, last year and the two years combined. Spoiler: the Big East is well ahead of all other conferences in all three records.

Big East

Combined 2023-24 record: 18-4 (82%)

2024 Record: 6-0 (100%)

2023 Record: 12-4 (75%)

Last year, Creighton deserved to win its Elite 8 game, but the officials made a bad call as time expired against a Creighton player basically just for touching an opponent’s floppy jersey and maybe very light contact with a few inches of the side of the waist. Almost 100% of drives in basketball have much more contact between the defender and driver – a much larger area of contact and much harder contact. So the Big East’s record last year was really 13-4, and may well have been 14-4 if Creighton won in the Final 4. Having 1 or 2 more wins last year would make the Big East’s combined record even more impressive. But even not counting it, the Big East’s record is much better than any other conference.

As the Big East’s Twitter account noted here, this year it became the first league ever to win 100% of its round 1 games, and to do so by 15 points. While it’s impossible to know what will happen in the next two weeks, the Big East is positioned to do well. Marquette plays an 11-seed they should beat. Tyler Kolek returned from his injury rest in top form. In round 2, he dished a whopping 11 assists, scored 21 points on 10 of 14 shooting (71%) and grabbed 5 rebounds while playing all 40 minutes. As this post pointed out, that feat put him tied with Jason Kidd and Draymond Green for the most games in NCAA history with 10+ points, 10+ assists and 5+ rebounds.

Creighton has a tough game against Tennessee, but if the Bluejays are shooting well, they can beat anyone in the country. In round 2, they were cold for most of regulation, then suddenly turned on the jets by scoring the first 15 points of the 2nd OT. In many of their games, the score is close for some of or a lot of the game, then they go on a vicious tear and put the game out of reach. Their attack is relentless and they have numerous weapons. They’re also highly experienced.

UConn plays a 5-seed next and is playing at a super high level in multiple ways. Most analysts agree that UConn and Purdue have been the two most impressive teams so far. Despite being ice cold from 3 in the 2nd round and hitting only 13.6%, UConn still decimated Northwestern. They opened with a 7-0 run and it was never closer than that. Every few minutes they expanded their lead, and were up 14 by the 12-minute mark. It was never closer than double-digits after that.

With a few minutes left in the half, they were up by 22. By 7 minutes into the next half, the lead ballooned to 30, and UConn had scored 111% more than Northwestern: 57-27. Danny Hurley pulled a few of his best players for some minutes to avoid getting injured in a blow-out. Also UConn got complacent and laid off the gas, allowing Northwestern to reduce the lead, but it never got closer than 16. If UConn had shot only 27% from 3, they would have had another 9 points. As the astute John Fanta posted, UConn has won its last 8 NCAA tourney games by an average of 22 points.

SEC

Combined 2023-24 record: 14-14 (50%)

2024 Record: 5-6 (45%)

2023 Record: 9-8 (53%)

I already described how horribly the SEC has done so far this year. So I’ll use this space to point you to this great SB Nation article that tools on the SEC for its terrible first round. In particular, it has funny, absurd quotes from SEC coaches claiming they’re the best league and will do great in the tourney.

One of the best is Auburn coach Bruce Pearl claiming: “Our league is prepared to make a run in March” before his 4th-seeded team choked against Yale. The biggest doozie is Tennessee coach Rick Barnes saying: “I think we’ve got the best basketball league in the country, and I don’t think it’s close.” The operative word is “think,” and that thought was flat-out wrong. If you have an account at SB Nation/CasualHoya, you can login to the article and write a comment poking fun at the SEC.

Their 2 teams left are 4-seed Alabama and 2-seed Tennessee. Even if they miraculously both go to the title game (with Alabama possibly having to get past North Carolina, Arizona and UConn) and the 3 Big East teams all lose their next games, the SEC winning percentage for this year of 63% would still be lower than the Big East’s 67%. And their combined record of 21-15 (58%) would be far behind the Big East’s 72%. By almost any measure, the Big East is much better than the SEC. Sorry, Rick.

ACC

Combined 2023-24 record: 15-6 (71%)

2024 Record: 8-1

2023 Record: 7-5

The ACC in this tournament is off to a strong 9-1 start partly due to NC State facing a 14-seed in the 2nd round and a weak Virginia team in the First 4. But they’re likely to lose 3 of their next 4 games with 2-seed Marquette playing 11-seed NC state, 1-seed Houston playing 4-seed Duke and 2-seed Arizona playing 6 seed Clemson. Duke probably has the best chance of an upset, but Houston is the #2 team in the country. 4-seed Alabama has as good of a chance of beating 5th ranked North Carolina, which barely got a 1-seed. Even if the ACC pulls off a few upsets, it has no chance of overtaking the Big East in the combined records.

They’re also quite behind the Big East in almost all other metrics. As I’ll describe in the Pac-12 section, the ACC is about to add three teams that didn’t come close to making the tourney. Considering that Virginia didn’t deserve a bid and NC State only got in because it won their tournament, the ACC came close to only having 3 of this year’s 15 teams get bids. That would have been only 20%. Including next year’s teams, it would have been 3 of 18, or only 17%. Granted, NC State has proven itself to be worthy of a bid. But even if we include them, 4 of 18 is only 22% that deserved a bid. The ACC has been down for several years, and that may continue for many more.

Big 12

Combined 2023-24 record: 16-13 (55%)

2024 Record: 7-6 (54%)

2023 Record: 9-7 (56%)

Coming into the tourney, I thought the Big 12 this year based on the regular season was the best conference, followed by the Big East. In the tourney, they got off to only an ok start, and then went downhill. At this point, they’ve dramatically underperformed expectations. Their real record this year should be 6-6 given that they would have lost to Samford if not for a horrible end-of-game call. The majority of their 6 teams that have exited did so via upsets. Their combined record of 55% puts them in 5th-place among multi-bid conferences, behind even the lowly Pac-12.

That said, they still have their best 2 teams in the dance, Houston and Iowa State, so they have potential for some amount of redemption. But even if both of their teams advance to the title game and all 3 Big East teams lose in the Sweet 16, the Big East’s combined record would still be well ahead of the Big 12. On the flip side, if the Big East’s teams continue to roll and the Big 12’s don’t, the Big East could overtake the Big 12 as the best conference this year.

Big Ten

Combined 2023-24 record: 12-12 (50%)

2024 Record: 6-4 (60%)

2023 Record: 6-8 (43%)

The Big Ten has a kind of weak track record in the tourney this century, and their combined record for these two years so far is no exception. Their combined record of 50% puts them only head of the American and the Atlantic 10 among multi-bid leagues. Consider that Northwestern was tied for 3rd in the Big Ten, and UConn had one of its worst outside shooting nights of its past two years, and still blew them out.

The Big Ten hasn’t won a national championship since 2000, and before that, its last one was in 1989. Winning a title only about once every 17 years is pretty bad. Since 1990, both UConn and Villanova have individually won more national championships than their whole league combined. This year might be their best shot in a long-time with 1-seed Purdue playing very well. But Purdue famously has a history of choking in the tourney. After this season, their two-time Player of the Year, Zach Edey, is gone … and the Big Ten’s odds of winning a title drop significantly. Even if Purdue pulls it off this year, the Big Ten is still only the 3rd or 4th best conference behind the Big East and Big 12.

Mountain West

Combined 2023-24 record: 9-9 (50%)

2024 Record: 4-5 (44%)

2023 Record: 5-4 (55%)

At 82%, the Big East’s winning percentage is comparatively 64% better than the Mountain West’s. That the Mountain West got 100% more bids than the Big East is absurd. As a Butler fan posted, since realignment in 2013-14, the Mountain West is now only 12-25 overall in the NCAA tournament and 7-24 without SDSU’s run in 2023. Without SDSU, they are 4-19 since 2014, and an abysmal 1-13 since 2019. Those stats include play-in games. They should get 2 at-large bids, and 3 at the most. The committee embarrassed themselves by handing them 6.

Pac-12

Combined 2023-24 record: 9-7 (56%)

2024 Record: 6-3 (67%)

2023 Record: 3-4 (43%)

The Pac-12 has been bad enough at basketball for enough years that it’s been some time since they were really a P6 conference in hoops. But they were still called P6 due to their football. At last they’ve been put out of their misery. The Big 12 is getting their best team, Arizona, and a solid team in Colorado. But they’re also getting a weak team in Arizona State and a team that had a losing record in a weak conference (Utah). Considering the Big 12’s current strength with 57% of their teams getting bids and Oklahoma probably deserving a bid (which would have been 64%), these 4 teams on average are somewhat weaker than the conference as a whole.

The ACC is getting major Pac-12 deadweight in Stanford and California that will drag their conference down even lower. Stanford and California were far from making the tourney. They probably are going to have an even tougher time recruiting in the future as mediocre West-coast teams playing many mediocre East-coast teams. The ACC is also adding an SMU team that didn’t make the tourney, and doesn’t have a strong basketball tradition.

The Big Ten is getting 3 Pac-12 teams that didn’t make the tourney, and 1 team (Oregon) that was only an 11-seed. Of the 3 non-bid teams, 2 of them (UCLA and USC) had overall losing records, and Washington was only 17-15 overall and 9-11 in a weak conference. On the whole, the 4 teams are a significant step down for the Big Ten. Their already bloated conference has become even more bloated.

West Coast

Combined 2023-24 record: 6-3 (67%)

2024 Record: 2-1 (67%)

2023 Record: 4-2 (67%)

On one hand, the WCC has performed better in the tourney in the combined years than any conference except the Big East and ACC. On the other hand, they haven’t deserved more than 2 bids, and are overall a somewhat weak conference after Gonzaga and St. Mary’s. I like the WCC and my hope is that they improve and become better and better. That could well happen due to the dissolution of the Pac-12. I think most of the former Pac-12 West-coast teams are going to have a much harder time recruiting in their new conferences.

I think the non-coastal former Pac-12 teams joining the Big 12 won’t have that problem because they form a natural geographic footprint with the majority of the Big 12. But with the Pac-12 gone and the Mountain West showing its true weakness, I think the West Coast is fairly open to the WCC growing into a much stronger conference.

Atlantic 10

Combined 2023-24 record: 2-3 (40%)

2024 Record: 2-2 (50%)

2023 Record: 0-1 (0%)

The A-10 only got two bids this year because 6th-place Duquesne managed to win their tournament. Dayton narrowly avoided an upset to 10-seed Nevada, and Duquesne notched an upset of BYU. But neither made it out of the opening weekend. Most years the A-10 will get 1 or 2 bids, and are not remotely close to being a P6 league. I think the transfer portal and NIL trends will hurt the A-10 as too many of its good players each year jump to stronger conferences for things like: a) Greater media exposure. b) NIL money and c) a higher likelihood of making the tourney.

American (AAC)

Combined 2023-24 record: 2-4 (33%)

2024 Record: 0-2 (0%)

2023 Record: 2-2 (50%)

The American’s loss of teams like UConn and Houston devastated it, and I see almost no hope for them recovering. Their only team with a very solid basketball tradition is Memphis, and it looks like they’re now suffering from the conference becoming so weak. I doubt that FAU will continue at its recent level for more than a few years more. Next year they’re also losing SMU. That normally wouldn’t be much of a loss, but when a conference is as down as the AAC has become, even SMU leaving is a serious loss.

The Totals

Here are the totals side-by side showing how far the Big East is ahead of the other conferences, particularly the 8-bid SEC, the 8-bid Big 12, the 6-bid Big Ten and the 6-bid Mountain West:

Big East: 82%

ACC: 71%

WCC: 67%

Pac-12: 56%

Big 12: 55%

Big Ten: 50%

Mountain West: 50%

Atlantic 10: 40%

AAC: 33%

The core problem is that the committee is comprised entirely of ADs and league commissioners who handle about 20 sports, who don’t know enough about basketball and have super busy jobs that preclude them from watching nearly enough men’s basketball games to know which teams are good enough for at-large bids.

To sum up how off track the committee is, let’s turn to someone who watches a ton of games each year, Dickie V, who basically wrote that the committee doesn’t even know basketball:

“Just studying the Draw & I think the Selection Committee did not give the RESPECT that the @BIGEAST deserved . Just ask anybody that knows basketball & they will tell you about the strength of the conference . @SetonHallMBB @PCFriarsmbb & @StJohnsBBall ”

Several coaches including Rick Pitino and Tom Izzo have recently said the committee should include some high quality retired coaches because they know far more about basketball than the current committee, and they also have far more time for watching plenty of games. That’s an excellent idea. College football already does that. Men’s basketball should not only do the same, but should have a higher percentage of the committee be retired coaches.

How bad is the current approach? Izzo literally called it “crazy,” even though his team got a bid and a solid seed for a team near the bubble. While Pitino gave the names of 3 legendary college hoops coaches, even a committee made up 100% of average college coaches would do a much better job awarding bids and picking seeds than a committee of overworked non-basketball people. Including plenty of retired coaches is a no-brainer. Moving on it should be done as fast as possible.