Ranking The Top 10 College Basketball Conferences

by rebelfan1 on Mar 23, 2011 6:47 PM PDT in Basketball

Throughout the College Basketball season, debates always seem to happen about which conference is the best and toughest to play in for College Basketball. Among the discussion most of the time is the Big East, Big Ten, ACC, and just recently the Big 12. Where most arguments come in is how to measure which conference has better depth and who has more of the elite teams. Since the power changes from year to year due to the process each team goes through in peaking, then rebuilding, then peaking, then rebuilding, and so on, it seems only fair that you should look back after the season has ended and rank the conferences then.

The reason I am writing this now and not after the National Championship is because we already know who the best of the best are. Once you get to the Sweet Sixteen, you have those elite teams since now is when they begin to play eachother. Think about it, during the regular season when two Top 16 teams meet up, you know both are worthy material to be in that rank, but you also know one of them will have to go down even though both are elite. The only difference is that the only remaining matchups are between Top 16 teams and there are no more seperations to be made when categorizing each team.

I have given each team in each conference a rating, based on this rubric.

Rank	Description
10	Top 5 seed in the Sweet Sixteen
9	6-16 seed in the Sweet Sixteen
8	Top 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament
7	6-12 seed in the NCAA Tournament
6	13-16 seed in the NCAA Tournament
5	1-4 seed in the NIT
4	5-8 seed in the NIT
3	In the CBI or CIT
2	100-200 RPI and not in any tournament
1	200+ RPI and not in any tournmanet

(Note: When I say "In the NCAA Tournament," I mean they got into the NCAA Tournament, but did not make it to the second weekend)

Using this rubric to assign ratings to each team in each conference, here is the process that I follow in finding the grade for each conference: 1) I add the rating of each team in the conference. 2) I take that number and divide it by the number of teams in that conference to get the average rating.

Now that you understand the process, let's take a look at each conference and then the rankings.

Big East

Team	Rating
Pittsburgh	8
Notre Dame	8
Louisville	8
Syracuse	8
St. John's	7
West Virginia	8
Cincinatti	7
Georgetown	7
Connecticut	9
Villanova	7
Marquette	9
Seton Hall	2
Rutgers	2
Providence	2
USF	2
DePaul	1
Total	95

Divide 95 by 16 and you get the Big East's grade of 5.94.

Big Ten

Team	Rating
Ohio State	10
Purdue	8
Wisconsin	10
Michigan	7
Illinois	7
Michigan State	7
Penn State	7
Northwestern	5
Minnesota	2
Iowa	2
Indiana	2
Total	67

Divide 67 by 11 and you get the Big Ten's grade of 6.09

Big 12

Team	Rating
Kansas	10
Texas	8
Texas A&M	7
Kansas State	8
Missouri	7
Colorado	5
Nebraska	4
Baylor	2
Oklahoma State	5
Oklahoma	2
Texas Tech	2
Iowa State	2
Total	62

Divide 51 by 12 and you get the Big 12's grade of 5.16

Mountain West

Team	Rating
BYU	10
San Diego State	10
UNLV	7
Colorado State	5
New Mexico	5
Air Force	3
Utah	2
Wyoming	1
TCU	1
Total	44

Divide 44 by 9 and you get the Mountain West's grade of 4.89

ACC

Team	Rating
North Carolina	10
Duke	10
Florida State	9
Clemson	7
Boston College	5
Virginia Tech	5
Maryland	2
Virginia	2
Miami (FL)	2
NC State	2
Georgia Tech	2
Wake Forest	1
Total	57

Divide 57 by 12 and you get the ACC's grade of 4.75

SEC

Team	Rating
Florida	10
Alabama	5
Kentucky	10
Vanderbilt	8
Georgia	7
Mississippi State	2
Tennessee	7
Mississippi	4
Arkansas	2
South Carolina	2
Auburn	1
LSU	1
Total	59

Divide 59 by 12 and you get the SEC's grade of 4.92

Pac-10

Team	Rating
Arizona	10
UCLA	7
Washington	7
USC	7
California	5
Washington State	5
Oregon	3
Stanford	2
Oregon State	1
Arizona State	2
Total	49

Divide 49 by 10 to get the Pac-10's grade of 4.90

Conference USA

Team	Rating
UAB	7
Tulsa	2
UTEP	4
Memphis	7
Southern Miss	2
Marshall	3
SMU	3
East Carolina	3
UCF	3
Rice	2
Houston	1
Tulane	1
Total	40

Divide 40 by 12 and you get Conference USA's grade of 3.33

Atlantic 10

Team	Rating
Xavier	7
Temple	7
Richmond	9
Duquesne	3
George Washington	2
Rhode Island	3
St. Bonaventure	3
Dayton	5
Massachusetts	2
La Salle	2
St. Louis	2
St. Joseph's	2
Charlotte	1
Fordham	1
Total	49

Divide 49 by 14 you get the Atlantic 10's grade of 3.50.

CAA (Colonial Athletic Association)

Team	Rating
George Mason	7
Old Dominion	7
Hofstra	3
VCU	9
Drexel	2
James Madison	3
Deleware	2
UNC Wilimington	1
Georgia State	1
Northeastern	2
William & Mary	1
Towson	1
Total	39

Divide 39 by 12 and you get the CAA's grade of 3.25.

Honorable Mentions who just missed the Top 10 list:

Horizon League, Missouri Valley, WAC, WCC, Ivy League

Here are the rankings of the conferences:

Rank	Conference	Grade
1	Big Ten	6.09
2	Big East	5.94
3	Big 12	5.16
4	SEC	4.92
5	Pac-10	4.90
6	Mountain West	4.89
7	ACC	4.75
8	Atlantic 10	3.50
9	Conference USA	3.33
10	CAA	3.25

There is an obvious dropoff from the Big 12 to the Atlantic 10 where you can see that the Top 7 conferences are better than the rest. Note that this model is based on the 2011 season data only.

Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comments as I welcome people pointing out errors. If there is enough obvious errors, than I may tweak this model and make another post at a later date.

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Comments

Wow thats alot of work you must have put into this

Very cool and also a huge drop from #2 to #3.

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by wheatie_87 on Mar 24, 2011 12:57 AM PDT reply actions

Double check the math regarding the Big 12

The total for the Big 12 should be 59 instead of 51. That would put them equal with the SEC.

by Woody-21 on Mar 24, 2011 9:23 AM PDT reply actions

Thanks for pointing that out

I’ll fix.

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UNLV is going to have 6 losses this year!
The Suns are going to be 57-25 in the regular season this year!

;)

Twitter: @rebelfan1_

by rebelfan1 on Mar 24, 2011 1:10 PM PDT up reply actions

It's a good idea

But obviously this has some design problems SEC is not as good of a bball conference as u make them look

by TowerPower on Mar 24, 2011 10:21 AM PDT via mobile reply actions

I figured out why I have an issue with this system...

It uses a mix of quality of regular season and performance in the tournament which it hard make them work together in this system that you used. If I was to take this on, I would make 2 systems and then average then together to get my total. Have 1 system for regular season which take into what you mainly did here by giving point based on tournament entries and seeding and then another based on performance. Just making the NCAA tourney should get you some points but going far in the NIT should count more than someone who only makes the 1st four (i.e. Colorado v UTSA). but I did want to let you know that I appreciate how much work you put into this.

by TowerPower on Mar 24, 2011 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions

(Note: When I say “In the NCAA Tournament,” I mean they got into the NCAA Tournament, but did not make it to the second weekend)

But it does include the losers of the play in games like UAB and USC, each of whom get 7 points while Colorado and Alabama only get 5 for getting to the Final Four of the NIT? And VCU and Butler get 9 for getting to the Sweet Sixteen. Not saying they shouldn’t be awarded more but 5-9 is a pretty big disparity especially when VCU and UAB bumped Colorado and Alabama from the Tourney. Once again thanks for entertaining me on a very slow work day.

by TowerPower on Mar 24, 2011 10:51 AM PDT up reply actions

I'll definitely think about some revisions

After looking at the system I formulated, there are some flaws. I’ll probably put up another post with a revised system later.

UNLV is going to have 6 losses this year!
The Suns are going to be 57-25 in the regular season this year!

;)

Twitter: @rebelfan1_

by rebelfan1 on Mar 24, 2011 1:15 PM PDT up reply actions

Big 12 is better than reported

Oklahoma State made the NIT this year which would adjust the conference score.

by aggiejm on Mar 24, 2011 10:25 AM PDT reply actions

so when I recalculated it I got 62 for the Big 12....

which when divided by 12 is 5.166666 that puts them squarely in 3rd…which makes this system more credible in my mind but the Pac10 still seems a little high and ACC pretty low in my opinion.

by TowerPower on Mar 24, 2011 11:03 AM PDT up reply actions

I think the reason that the ACC is a little low and the Pac-10 too high

Is a flaw in the system. Who goes to the NCAA Tournament is based upon how good of a team you are, while all the other tournaments are mostly predicated upon who will get better TV ratings, and in the case of the CBI and CIT, who will sell the most tickets. ACC schools would get good TV ratings, but they won’t make the CBI or CIT since no ACC school will accept an invitation to those tournaments since it would actually look worse than no tournament for them. The Pac-10 schools don’t have so much of an issue with the CBI or CIT and therefore get 4 or 5 more points than ACC teams.

UNLV is going to have 6 losses this year!
The Suns are going to be 57-25 in the regular season this year!

;)

Twitter: @rebelfan1_

by rebelfan1 on Mar 24, 2011 2:39 PM PDT up reply actions

good observations...

I could really care less about who is where but these comparisons are always interesting, couple this info with the BCS conference evaluation info and its obvious to me that the MWC should be considered a major conference (especially if they add Gonzaga and Utah St), and to a lesser extent CUSA too even though we all know that the Big East is just bidding its time…

by TowerPower on Mar 24, 2011 6:52 PM PDT up reply actions