|
24 February 2010
March Madness is upon us. There is a daily buzz about teams that are on the bubble, teams that are a lock for the tournament, and teams that will have to win their conference championship to have a prayer at making the tournament (see North Carolina). As we roll closer to tourney time, talk will start up about how many teams each conference will send to the Big Dance.
Every year there are conferences that send over half their league to the tournament. The Big East will likely send at least that many this year. On the other side of the coin, there is always a conference that drags up the rear. These dogs usually put three or four teams in, with those last couple being questionable choices.
You have to look far out to the West Coast to find this year's dog. The Pac-10 conference has been terrible this year. Quick, think of how many times you've heard the Pac-10 mentioned on national TV this year. I'm guessing Game Day was the only time. That's how awful the Pac-10 has been this year.
You can tell how good (or bad) a conference is by looking at their overall record in games played out of conference. For example, the Big East leads the major six conferences with an 83.7% win percentage out of conference. The Big 12 and ACC also have win percentages over 80% at 82.1% and 81.4%, respectively. How has the Pac-10 fared out of conference? They have have won a whopping 63.6% of the games they've played out of conference.
At first glance 63.6% doesn't look too poor. That nearly equates to winning two of every three games, or going 20-10 for the season. What you have to realize is that a large percentage of non-conference games are played against sub par competition in the way of mid majors. For example, the conference leader California played such power houses as Murray State, Detroit, Jacksonville, Princeton, Pacific, Utah Valley University, and UC-Santa Barbara during non-conference play. Not surprisingly, Cal went 7-0 in those games. They went 1-4 in their other non-conference games.
What this means is that the Pac-10 is not very good overall. In fact, they stand a good chance of only getting one team into the NCAA tournament.
So while the Pac-10 has been woeful this season, you might want to pay attention over the next two weeks. With nearly every team heading into the conference tournament needing to win it all to make it to further postseason play, the Pac-10 tournament could actually be half way interesting. Or you could waste a week watching poor basketball. That's your choice, but I'll be watching the three weeks of Big East playoffs and seeing if Kentucky and Kansas can win their conference tournaments.
