Posts
Do you still think the mid majors had too many teams in the NCAA tourney?
------------------------------------------------------------
Well, who had the "post of the day" in answer to the "Question of the Day"? Noneother than well-known GT Hoops guru RamblinRed. Here's was his fact-based answer on the mid-majors and ALL the conferences::
No. I think the mix was about right. It is alot of fun to be able to root for some of the underdogs and there is always going to be a debate over how many mid-majors vs. power conference teams should be taken. You have to have some mid-majors to have the David vs. Goliath type matchups where David has a shot. The MVC probably should have gotten a 5th bid.
Here is my breakdown of Conference performance through the first 2 rounds. I have been doing this for about 5 years and in general the ACC scores high and the SEC and Pac 10 low - though Big 10 took garbage to a whole new level this year.
I base my rankings on 3 pieces
1. Overall conference winning percentage
2. +/- metric based onperformance relative to seeding (9-16 seed - expect 0 wins, 5-8 - 1 win, 3-4 - 2 wins, 2 - 3 wins, 1 - 4 wins)
3. +/- metric based on Sweet Sixteen participants vs. seeding. (A top 4 seed is expected to be in the Sweet Sixteen).
To this point here is how I would rank the conferences. Note there are still 2 weeks left.
1. MVC - 4-2, +3 to seed, +2 Sweet Sixteen.
4th in winning percentage, but first in performance relative to seed and Sweet Sixteen teams.
2. Big East - 9-4, 0, +2
Most wins so far, 4 teams in the Sweet Sixteen when seeding would have suggested 2.
3. Pac 10 - 5-2, 0, 0
2nd highest winning percentage. Playing right to seed so far.
4. ACC - 6-2, 0, -1
Highest winning percentage but UNC's loss meant a -1 on Sweet Sixteen (2 vs. 3 expected).
5. SEC - 7-4, -2, -1
After a solid start a poor second round. Mitchell's three saved this from looking even worse. TN flameout hurt.
6. Big 12 - 3-3, -2, -1
Nice win by A&M, if they had beaten SEC it would have moved Big 12 in front of them. Kansas and OK flame out, TX has
been strong.
7. Big 10 - 3-6, -6, -3
A complete disaster. No Sweet 16 teams despite 3 Top 4 seeds and 6 bids. The -6 to seed performance is the worst since
I started tracking this.
FWIW, I would put the MVC and Big East together in a class for the first two rounds, then Pac 10 and ACC together, then SEC, then Big 12.
RamblinRed