(08-27-2013 10:46 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 09:23 AM)mascotswinchampionships Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 02:50 AM)NJRedMan Wrote:  

(08-26-2013 09:22 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-26-2013 08:38 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  C'mon stever, just because you love the AAC and wish you were still back there doesn't mean it's an elite conference. Cincy is an elite program? Memphis who hasn't played a top 100 team during the regular season in 4 years is elite? I like Temple but they are not elite. Elite is UK, Duke, UNC, Kansas, UConn, Michigan State, Georgetown, UCLA and the like. UConn is the only one who fits that description.

Beating up on the chumps in that league and making the tourny is not some sort of accomplishment.

You can act like you're a Big East fan but we all know you fly the AAC flag. You don't fool me for one single second.

A conference is more than just a few teams at the top.

Conferences better than the AAC in Basketball.

ACC
B1G
Big East
Big XII
SEC
MWC
Pac 12

I have to question the last three. The AAC is going to be a factor in basketball--or more exactly, UConn, Memphis, Temple and Cincy will continue to be factors. The AAC will regularly put 3-4 teams in the tournament, with one or two doing damage in any given year.

I think that puts them on a level with the SEC, and at least on a level with the PAC-12 and the currently-overrated MWC.

Somewhere along the line Stever20 invested in the idea that the UCFs and SMUs and Houstons of the world were just about to become athletic powers.

The lack of depth really hurts them.

Tulane, USF, SMU, Houston, ECU, UCF...

I'll give you the SEC but the American should hold its own against the MWC and P12. The MWC went belly up in the last tourney.

If an SMU becomes a tourney team you'd have 5 of the 11 teams with legit chances to get there most years. The Big East might be more like 5 or 6 out of 10 most years.

Having a legit chance and actually getting there are 2 different things. Let's just look at the past 10 years as a representative sample:

Memphis - 8
UConn - 7
Temple - 6
Cincy - 5

So even with the big 4, the 10 year average is 2.6, which is 2-3 per year, not 4. Throw in the rest of the conference and here's what you get:

UCF - 2
USF - 1
Houston - 1

None of the other future members has obtained a single bid in the past decade. So, at best you're looking at a group of teams who have averaged 3 bids per year over the past 10 years. I say "at best" because some of those bids were obtained solely by obtaining the automatic bid from an inferior league. In the current configuration, those same teams would not get those automatic bids in this conference.

Now SMU is upgrading. Does that make this a 4-bid conference? Sometimes. Even an upgraded SMU isn't going to make it every year. And do all of the others stay as strong in the face of a more competitive SMU? Probably not. Some of those SMU bids are ones that they've snatched from the grasp of other conference foes. What we're looking at with an upgraded SMU is a 3-4 bid league.

But what we're doing is assuming continuing success for previously successful programs and projecting future success for a previously failed program. It doesn't usually work that way. All programs go through ups and downs. This will be a 3-4 bid league if everything breaks right. It may not.

The big problem for AAC basketball is that it is trying to succeed in a football-centric conference. SMU simply adds a 5th school to the programs that are actually trying to succeed in hoops, leaving more than half the conference that does not care about the sport.

Your decade average doesn't apply to Temple. The end of the Chaney era was NIT because he was too old. Coaches talked recruits out of going there. And he didn't have a replacement lined up.

Under Dunphy Temple has succeeded despite zero TV exposure during the season. The American will give him a stronger argument to make to players. Hey, want to be on national TV all the time? That was one thing Villanova could always say and Temple couldn't. That's no longer the case.

Also, it's hardly a football-centric conference. Temple and Memphis will always care about basketball in a huge way. And UConn, are you kidding?

And SMU already has their coach in waiting on staff. The academics are high and the campus is nice. It looks a lot more likely to stay around than say a Florida Gulf Coast.

Besides all this, it's not a good comparison to look at how teams did in inferior conferences with worse TV coverage and try to project their future.

(08-27-2013 04:20 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 01:11 PM)stever20 Wrote:  I'm coming up with Big East with 46 bids last 10 years, AAC 30. AAC realistically 31 due to UConn last year, they would have been in the tourney. I have 3 AAC spots being autobids(Houston, UCF). I have 1 for the Big East group(Xavier in 2006).

If you look at the last 5 years which is probably more realistic to how we are today, it's actually better for both conferences.
Big East 24 bids, AAC with 17 bids. That's 4.8-3.4. The big 4 if you will for the AAC with 15 bids in those 5 years(and 16 if you include UConn last year). I think the question about earning bids in easier conferences actually applies more to us than the AAC. Butler was in a far easier conference(Horizon) than C-USA.

We've had 1 more team make the tourney last 5 years than the AAC(7-6 teams).

1. You can't count an extra bid for the AAC based on UConn because realistically if UConn had gone, then Cincy probably would not. They were horrible down the stretch where the committee normally places a lot of emphasis.

2. Butler may have been in a far easier conference, but they validated their selections with their play in the tournament. I was thinking more of a team like UCF which got bids in 2004-05 out of the Atlantic Sun. There was also Houston which won the auto CUSA bid in 2010 in a season when Memphis had a down year & didn't make the NCAA's. Houston finished 7-9
in CUSA that year, tied for 7th, pulled a 1-point upset of Memphis in the tournament and had a cake walk the rest of the way in a weak CUSA. No way that same Houston team runs through the tournament in a stronger conference. Both UCF and Houston were out of the NCAA's in the first round those 3 years.

Cincy wasn't a last 4 team in so they wouldn't have been out by any stretch.

And committee doesn't look at end of the season like they used to, I mean, Villanova made it a few years ago when they were putrid down the stretch.

(08-27-2013 09:15 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 07:54 AM)stever20 Wrote:  We'll see about the AAC. They are in a lot of years going to be in that 5-7 range. And, that's if the recruiting with the exposure doesn't pick up, which is doubtable.

As far as folks that say their lack of depth hurts them- I don't think folks look at the 8th place team and because they suck, they look at them as a bad conference. What matters to folks is how they are at the top, and the AAC has that covered.

The AAC has the top covered with UConn and Memphis - assuming that Ollie can follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. Both are off to a good start.

I'm really not sure what we have with Cincy and Temple. They still haven't quite established themselves. I have more faith in Cincy because Cronin has them headed in the right direction and because he had them competitive in a very tough Big East. With the easier schedule, they will probably soar. Still have to do it, but I'm buying them.

Temple OTOH lost major pieces from last year and hasn't brought in any big time recruits, so I don't expect much from this year. They could succeed with those 3* recruits in the A10 but the lack of talent showed in the tournament as they flamed out every year. Fran Dunphy has proven that he can coach, but he is not a proven that he can recruit. Temple is going to have to upgrade it's recruiting if they're going to prove that they're anything more than a paper tiger who beats up on mid majors but falls flat against major national competition.

This could easily be a 2 bid conference with 3 in a good year. Lack of depth hurts because no one else gets to the tournament except for your top teams and even they take a year off occasionally. And when someone else makes the occasional run to the tournament, they're one and done. People do notice that kind of stuff.

The ACC may be only a 2 team conference, but they have enough depth that a different somebody always seems to rise up and make a major impact whether it's been Maryland in the past, or Georgia Tech, or Virginia, or NC State, or Wake, or Clemson. Miami looked like last year like they'll be the latest program in that conference to step up. Obviously the additions of Syracuse, Louisville, etc. mean that they'll be even deeper in the future.

Same is true for the SEC. While Kentucky and Florida are the ones who sustain success year in and year out, there always seems to be an LSU or a Mississippi State who also makes a deep run into the tournament occasionally. Not to mention Vandy, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and newcomers Missouri and TAM. Other than the hopeful signs at SMU, that's the kind of depth that the AAC is lacking.

Depth is precisely why the Big East is so much better a conference than the AAC. Every one of those teams has had major success in the modern era, so it will be no surprise if they do it again. They all have fans with memories of past triumphs who will turn out to celebrate new ones.

FYI Temple knocked off a top 10 team in each of the past five years: #8 Tennessee, #3 Villanova, #9 Georgetown, #5 Duke and #3 Syracuse last year. Plus they nearly beat Kansas in their building, knocked off ranked VCU and then gave Indiana a major dogfight.

No other school beat a top 10 opponent as an unranked team each of the past five seasons.

All that was done on a fraction of the money and exposure the team will receive. Plus, all new practice facilities to show off to recruits. The uncertainty of the American hurt them this year, no question. But long term it looks better than ever.

(08-27-2013 03:10 PM)stever20 Wrote:  bottom line, your stament no matter how you heard it is not right.

Bottom line, a conference with on average last 5 years 3.6 bids realistically is not a bad conference. And, if SMU can come thru and go fairly often, that's even bigger. Same with Houston(who just got a really good guard). It seems like the recruits are seeing the incoming AAC schools as being big time now.

I don't know how you came up with 3.6 bids. Are you counting a bid for UConn that they didn't get?

I come up 17 bids over the past 5 years which = 3.4. And even that is inflated by Houston's 2010 bid which they would never have gotten in any reasonably strong conference. So now we're down to 3.2.

If SMU can get in there, you can't simply assume the status quo for everyone else because SMU may be grabbing that bid from another team within their own conference.

I love how everyone's simply handing out a bid to SMU just because they made some recruiting headlines. And now to Houston as well. Can we do the same thing for the Big East?

I come up with 23 bids for the Big East over the past 5 years, which = 4.6 bids per year. But we know that St. John's and Providence are loaded and that both are primed for big years. So, can we simply assume that they will go fairly often, meaning that instead of a 4-5 bid league, the Big East will be a 5-6 bid league?

I disagree that a 5 year average is more realistic. Ten years is still recent and it better captures the ups and downs that all programs experience better than a 5 year span. Historically the AAC teams have earned 3 bids per year on average over the past 10 years while the Big East teams have earned 4-5, which is significantly better.

A 3-bid conference is certainly not bad. A one bid league is a bad conference. But there is simply no denying that the bottom half of the AAC is a collection of awful basketball programs. 4 of them haven't made a single appearance in the past 10 years. UCF was only able to get there because it was in the Atlantic Sun, which is a a bad, one-bid conference. SMU is the only one of the bunch that has any prospects for serious improvement in the future.

In contrast, every Big East program has been to the big dance at least once over the past 10 years. St. John's, Seton Hall, & Providence all go there coming out of the toughest basketball conference conference in the country. Had they been playing in the Atlantic sun or a watered down CUSA or even the A10, I'm sure they could have gotten there a lot more often. The Big East is simply a much stronger conference top to bottom than the AAC except for UConn.

(08-27-2013 04:48 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 03:10 PM)stever20 Wrote:  bottom line, your stament no matter how you heard it is not right.

Bottom line, a conference with on average last 5 years 3.6 bids realistically is not a bad conference. And, if SMU can come thru and go fairly often, that's even bigger. Same with Houston(who just got a really good guard). It seems like the recruits are seeing the incoming AAC schools as being big time now.

I don't know how you came up with 3.6 bids. Are you counting a bid for UConn that they didn't get?

I come up 17 bids over the past 5 years which = 3.4. And even that is inflated by Houston's 2010 bid which they would never have gotten in any reasonably strong conference. So now we're down to 3.2.

If SMU can get in there, you can't simply assume the status quo for everyone else because SMU may be grabbing that bid from another team within their own conference.

I love how everyone's simply handing out a bid to SMU just because they made some recruiting headlines. And now to Houston as well. Can we do the same thing for the Big East?

I come up with 23 bids for the Big East over the past 5 years, which = 4.6 bids per year. But we know that St. John's and Providence are loaded and that both are primed for big years. So, can we simply assume that they will go fairly often, meaning that instead of a 4-5 bid league, the Big East will be a 5-6 bid league?

I disagree that a 5 year average is more realistic. Ten years is still recent and it better captures the ups and downs that all programs experience better than a 5 year span. Historically the AAC teams have earned 3 bids per year on average over the past 10 years while the Big East teams have earned 4-5, which is significantly better.

A 3-bid conference is certainly not bad. A one bid league is a bad conference. But there is simply no denying that the bottom half of the AAC is a collection of awful basketball programs. 4 of them haven't made a single appearance in the past 10 years. UCF was only able to get there because it was in the Atlantic Sun, which is a a bad, one-bid conference. SMU is the only one of the bunch that has any prospects for serious improvement in the future.

In contrast, every Big East program has been to the big dance at least once over the past 10 years. St. John's, Seton Hall, & Providence all go there coming out of the toughest basketball conference conference in the country. Had they been playing in the Atlantic sun or a watered down CUSA or even the A10, I'm sure they could have gotten there a lot more often. The Big East is simply a much stronger conference top to bottom than the AAC except for UConn.

For teams that routinely make the tournament I expect that trend to continue. For the other American teams I don't think anyone can predict a thing based on their past.

Their past didn't include having just about every game nationally televised. Their past didn't include playing UConn, Cincy, Memphis, Temple twice yearly. To future recruits their past hardly matters.

All the kids in 2014-2015 will know about SMU is that it's got talent, TV exposure and a coach who won championships in the NBA and NCAA.

Also, a rising tide raises all boats. The RPI of the teams in the league will be higher because of the top four. That same phenomenon did wonders for the Big East. And while we are at it, UConn is the one school that could see a drop in success in the American.

(08-27-2013 04:59 PM)mascotswinchampionships Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 04:48 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 03:10 PM)stever20 Wrote:  bottom line, your stament no matter how you heard it is not right.

Bottom line, a conference with on average last 5 years 3.6 bids realistically is not a bad conference. And, if SMU can come thru and go fairly often, that's even bigger. Same with Houston(who just got a really good guard). It seems like the recruits are seeing the incoming AAC schools as being big time now.

I don't know how you came up with 3.6 bids. Are you counting a bid for UConn that they didn't get?

I come up 17 bids over the past 5 years which = 3.4. And even that is inflated by Houston's 2010 bid which they would never have gotten in any reasonably strong conference. So now we're down to 3.2.

If SMU can get in there, you can't simply assume the status quo for everyone else because SMU may be grabbing that bid from another team within their own conference.

I love how everyone's simply handing out a bid to SMU just because they made some recruiting headlines. And now to Houston as well. Can we do the same thing for the Big East?

I come up with 23 bids for the Big East over the past 5 years, which = 4.6 bids per year. But we know that St. John's and Providence are loaded and that both are primed for big years. So, can we simply assume that they will go fairly often, meaning that instead of a 4-5 bid league, the Big East will be a 5-6 bid league?

I disagree that a 5 year average is more realistic. Ten years is still recent and it better captures the ups and downs that all programs experience better than a 5 year span. Historically the AAC teams have earned 3 bids per year on average over the past 10 years while the Big East teams have earned 4-5, which is significantly better.

A 3-bid conference is certainly not bad. A one bid league is a bad conference. But there is simply no denying that the bottom half of the AAC is a collection of awful basketball programs. 4 of them haven't made a single appearance in the past 10 years. UCF was only able to get there because it was in the Atlantic Sun, which is a a bad, one-bid conference. SMU is the only one of the bunch that has any prospects for serious improvement in the future.

In contrast, every Big East program has been to the big dance at least once over the past 10 years. St. John's, Seton Hall, & Providence all go there coming out of the toughest basketball conference conference in the country. Had they been playing in the Atlantic sun or a watered down CUSA or even the A10, I'm sure they could have gotten there a lot more often. The Big East is simply a much stronger conference top to bottom than the AAC except for UConn.

For teams that routinely make the tournament I expect that trend to continue. For the other American teams I don't think anyone can predict a thing based on their past.

Their past didn't include having just about every game nationally televised. Their past didn't include playing UConn, Cincy, Memphis, Temple twice yearly. To future recruits their past hardly matters.

All the kids in 2014-2015 will know about SMU is that it's got talent, TV exposure and a coach who won championships in the NBA and NCAA.

Also, a rising tide raises all boats. The RPI of the teams in the league will be higher because of the top four. That same phenomenon did wonders for the Big East. And while we are at it, UConn is the one school that could see a drop in success in the American.

Uh no. The bottom of the league will drag down the RPI of the top teams. The Big East had quality teams that won most of it's OOC games which helped the leagues overall RPI. Seton Hall and Providence were winning their SEC challenge games and those were against middle of the pack teams in a P5 conference.

The kids in '14-'15 will know that SMU hasn't made an ncaa tourny in their lifetime.

This idea that the AAC will have every game nationally televised is a bit misleading. CBSSN isn't a nationally carried channel. They are only in around 50 million homes compared to FS1 which is in 90 million. Also we shall see just what kind of exposure they actually get. They will always take a backseat to the ACC, B1G, Big XII, Pac and SEC on ESPN. Do games on ESPNU count as nationally televised when at the same time Ohio St, Duke, UNC, UK, Kansas or Michigan are playing?

(08-27-2013 05:17 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  This idea that the AAC will have every game nationally televised is a bit misleading. CBSSN isn't a nationally carried channel. They are only in around 50 million homes compared to FS1 which is in 90 million.

Also, some of the AAC games are going to be on ESPN-News. That means a whole 'nother channel worth of games. So the AAC will be on more--but so will just about everybody else. More MAC basketball, more Horizon League, more WCC, more A-10 (not sure how their ESPN/NBC/CBS split works exactly...), more Mountain West, more Sun Belt, more Missouri VAlley, more America East, more Big South, more MAAC....

(08-22-2013 08:36 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  There are so many factual attendance errors in that chart, where'd he get those numbers? On both sides the American and Big East.

Official average attendances from the NCAA:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketba...d/2013.pdf

School (Conference, # of home games) - Average Attendance
Louisville (American, 16) - 21,571 *
Creighton (Big East, 17) - 17,155
Memphis (American, 18) - 16,336
Marquette (Big East, 16) - 15,033
Georgetown (Big East, 17) - 10,911
Connecticut (American, 16) - 10,728
Xavier (Big East, 15) - 9,781
Cincinnati (American, 18) - 9,253
Villanova (Big East, 16) - 8,022
Butler (Big East, 16) - 7,899
Providence (Big East, 18) - 7,772
Depaul (Big East, 17) - 7,681
St John's (Big East, 17) - 7,330
Seton Hall (Big East, 17) - 7,035
Temple (American, 17) - 5,917
South Florida (American, 18) - 5,389
Rutgers (American, 16) - 4,922 *
Central Florida (American, 20) - 4,523
Houston (American, 18) - 3,707
Southern Methodist (American, 14) - 3,443

*- Departs next year
Future Additions:
Tulsa (American, 14) - 4,580
East Carolina (American, 21) - 4,659
Tulane (American, 19) - 1,851

My guess is schools moving up will see a bump in both conferences, while the holdovers in both will likely see declines as marquee names will be off their conference slates going forward.

All three new members will have lower attendance than Rutgers!

(08-27-2013 04:39 PM)mascotswinchampionships Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 09:15 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 07:54 AM)stever20 Wrote:  We'll see about the AAC. They are in a lot of years going to be in that 5-7 range. And, that's if the recruiting with the exposure doesn't pick up, which is doubtable.

As far as folks that say their lack of depth hurts them- I don't think folks look at the 8th place team and because they suck, they look at them as a bad conference. What matters to folks is how they are at the top, and the AAC has that covered.

The AAC has the top covered with UConn and Memphis - assuming that Ollie can follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. Both are off to a good start.

I'm really not sure what we have with Cincy and Temple. They still haven't quite established themselves. I have more faith in Cincy because Cronin has them headed in the right direction and because he had them competitive in a very tough Big East. With the easier schedule, they will probably soar. Still have to do it, but I'm buying them.

Temple OTOH lost major pieces from last year and hasn't brought in any big time recruits, so I don't expect much from this year. They could succeed with those 3* recruits in the A10 but the lack of talent showed in the tournament as they flamed out every year. Fran Dunphy has proven that he can coach, but he is not a proven that he can recruit. Temple is going to have to upgrade it's recruiting if they're going to prove that they're anything more than a paper tiger who beats up on mid majors but falls flat against major national competition.

This could easily be a 2 bid conference with 3 in a good year. Lack of depth hurts because no one else gets to the tournament except for your top teams and even they take a year off occasionally. And when someone else makes the occasional run to the tournament, they're one and done. People do notice that kind of stuff.

The ACC may be only a 2 team conference, but they have enough depth that a different somebody always seems to rise up and make a major impact whether it's been Maryland in the past, or Georgia Tech, or Virginia, or NC State, or Wake, or Clemson. Miami looked like last year like they'll be the latest program in that conference to step up. Obviously the additions of Syracuse, Louisville, etc. mean that they'll be even deeper in the future.

Same is true for the SEC. While Kentucky and Florida are the ones who sustain success year in and year out, there always seems to be an LSU or a Mississippi State who also makes a deep run into the tournament occasionally. Not to mention Vandy, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and newcomers Missouri and TAM. Other than the hopeful signs at SMU, that's the kind of depth that the AAC is lacking.

Depth is precisely why the Big East is so much better a conference than the AAC. Every one of those teams has had major success in the modern era, so it will be no surprise if they do it again. They all have fans with memories of past triumphs who will turn out to celebrate new ones.

FYI Temple knocked off a top 10 team in each of the past five years: #8 Tennessee, #3 Villanova, #9 Georgetown, #5 Duke and #3 Syracuse last year. Plus they nearly beat Kansas in their building, knocked off ranked VCU and then gave Indiana a major dogfight.

No other school beat a top 10 opponent as an unranked team each of the past five seasons.

All that was done on a fraction of the money and exposure the team will receive. Plus, all new practice facilities to show off to recruits. The uncertainty of the American hurt them this year, no question. But long term it looks better than ever.

Just as challenging is trying to climb out of the lower half of a 16-team conference as BE teams like Providence have been trying to do. These 2nd tier schools were certainly not getting a lot of exposure as ESPN and CBS were featuring the top BE teams on TV march ups.

But look how PC has also knocked off ranked teams every year for years. One of the reasons I'm so confident in this new BE is that their teams know how to play top opponents and win. They'll have much more opportunity to rise in the standings of a 10 team league than they did in a 16 team conference.

Here are PC 's big wins in recent years:

2013 - #17 Cincinnati, #21 Notre Dame
2012 - #15 Louisville (finished in Final Four)
2011 - #7 Villanova, #15 Louisville
2010 - #19 UConn
2009 - #1 Pitt, #15 Syracuse
2007/08 - #14 UConn, #18 Arkansas
2007 - #18 West Virginia, #21 Marquette

I think that's equally impressive - 7 straight years of knocking off top 20 teams including a #1, a F4, and a #7. The odd thing is that they were not typically close games; many of them were blow outs - Notre Dame by 21, Louisville's F4 team by 31, Villanova by 15, UConn by 15, Arkansas by 16, and Marquette by 15.

(08-27-2013 11:37 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 04:39 PM)mascotswinchampionships Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 09:15 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 07:54 AM)stever20 Wrote:  We'll see about the AAC. They are in a lot of years going to be in that 5-7 range. And, that's if the recruiting with the exposure doesn't pick up, which is doubtable.

As far as folks that say their lack of depth hurts them- I don't think folks look at the 8th place team and because they suck, they look at them as a bad conference. What matters to folks is how they are at the top, and the AAC has that covered.

The AAC has the top covered with UConn and Memphis - assuming that Ollie can follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. Both are off to a good start.

I'm really not sure what we have with Cincy and Temple. They still haven't quite established themselves. I have more faith in Cincy because Cronin has them headed in the right direction and because he had them competitive in a very tough Big East. With the easier schedule, they will probably soar. Still have to do it, but I'm buying them.

Temple OTOH lost major pieces from last year and hasn't brought in any big time recruits, so I don't expect much from this year. They could succeed with those 3* recruits in the A10 but the lack of talent showed in the tournament as they flamed out every year. Fran Dunphy has proven that he can coach, but he is not a proven that he can recruit. Temple is going to have to upgrade it's recruiting if they're going to prove that they're anything more than a paper tiger who beats up on mid majors but falls flat against major national competition.

This could easily be a 2 bid conference with 3 in a good year. Lack of depth hurts because no one else gets to the tournament except for your top teams and even they take a year off occasionally. And when someone else makes the occasional run to the tournament, they're one and done. People do notice that kind of stuff.

The ACC may be only a 2 team conference, but they have enough depth that a different somebody always seems to rise up and make a major impact whether it's been Maryland in the past, or Georgia Tech, or Virginia, or NC State, or Wake, or Clemson. Miami looked like last year like they'll be the latest program in that conference to step up. Obviously the additions of Syracuse, Louisville, etc. mean that they'll be even deeper in the future.

Same is true for the SEC. While Kentucky and Florida are the ones who sustain success year in and year out, there always seems to be an LSU or a Mississippi State who also makes a deep run into the tournament occasionally. Not to mention Vandy, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and newcomers Missouri and TAM. Other than the hopeful signs at SMU, that's the kind of depth that the AAC is lacking.

Depth is precisely why the Big East is so much better a conference than the AAC. Every one of those teams has had major success in the modern era, so it will be no surprise if they do it again. They all have fans with memories of past triumphs who will turn out to celebrate new ones.

FYI Temple knocked off a top 10 team in each of the past five years: #8 Tennessee, #3 Villanova, #9 Georgetown, #5 Duke and #3 Syracuse last year. Plus they nearly beat Kansas in their building, knocked off ranked VCU and then gave Indiana a major dogfight.

No other school beat a top 10 opponent as an unranked team each of the past five seasons.

All that was done on a fraction of the money and exposure the team will receive. Plus, all new practice facilities to show off to recruits. The uncertainty of the American hurt them this year, no question. But long term it looks better than ever.

Just as challenging is trying to climb out of the lower half of a 16-team conference as BE teams like Providence have been trying to do. These 2nd tier schools were certainly not getting a lot of exposure as ESPN and CBS were featuring the top BE teams on TV march ups.

But look how PC has also knocked off ranked teams every year for years. One of the reasons I'm so confident in this new BE is that their teams know how to play top opponents and win. They'll have much more opportunity to rise in the standings of a 10 team league than they did in a 16 team conference.

Here are PC 's big wins in recent years:

2013 - #17 Cincinnati, #21 Notre Dame
2012 - #15 Louisville (finished in Final Four)
2011 - #7 Villanova, #15 Louisville
2010 - #19 UConn
2009 - #1 Pitt, #15 Syracuse
2007/08 - #14 UConn, #18 Arkansas
2007 - #18 West Virginia, #21 Marquette

I think that's equally impressive - 7 straight years of knocking off top 20 teams including a #1, a F4, and a #7. The odd thing is that they were not typically close games; many of them were blow outs - Notre Dame by 21, Louisville's F4 team by 31, Villanova by 15, UConn by 15, Arkansas by 16, and Marquette by 15.

I'd be kind of curious Melky to see how many of those opponents that was the only time that Providence played them that season compared to they played them 2x. I think- and this will go for the AAC as well- the true round robin is huge. There will be within a few years a LOT more familiarity with the opponents. I could see this actually going either way with more or less upsets. I mean even, look at last year in the Big 12. Kansas lost to TCU of all teams and beat WVU by 5 points 1st time, then beat both by 26 points in the 2nd time around.

It will be interesting to see if teams like Providence can move out of the cellar.

Brother Stever,
You're handing out NCAA bids to Southern Methodist like they're potato chips, but you're still not exactly sure about the Friars chances of possibly maybe sorta poking their heads out of the cellar... you've decided to wait and see on that one... ok...

(08-27-2013 04:48 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(08-27-2013 03:10 PM)stever20 Wrote:  bottom line, your stament no matter how you heard it is not right.

Bottom line, a conference with on average last 5 years 3.6 bids realistically is not a bad conference. And, if SMU can come thru and go fairly often, that's even bigger. Same with Houston(who just got a really good guard). It seems like the recruits are seeing the incoming AAC schools as being big time now.

I don't know how you came up with 3.6 bids. Are you counting a bid for UConn that they didn't get?

I come up 17 bids over the past 5 years which = 3.4. And even that is inflated by Houston's 2010 bid which they would never have gotten in any reasonably strong conference. So now we're down to 3.2.

If SMU can get in there, you can't simply assume the status quo for everyone else because SMU may be grabbing that bid from another team within their own conference.

I love how everyone's simply handing out a bid to SMU just because they made some recruiting headlines. And now to Houston as well. Can we do the same thing for the Big East?

I come up with 23 bids for the Big East over the past 5 years, which = 4.6 bids per year. But we know that St. John's and Providence are loaded and that both are primed for big years. So, can we simply assume that they will go fairly often, meaning that instead of a 4-5 bid league, the Big East will be a 5-6 bid league?

I disagree that a 5 year average is more realistic. Ten years is still recent and it better captures the ups and downs that all programs experience better than a 5 year span. Historically the AAC teams have earned 3 bids per year on average over the past 10 years while the Big East teams have earned 4-5, which is significantly better.

A 3-bid conference is certainly not bad. A one bid league is a bad conference. But there is simply no denying that the bottom half of the AAC is a collection of awful basketball programs. 4 of them haven't made a single appearance in the past 10 years. UCF was only able to get there because it was in the Atlantic Sun, which is a a bad, one-bid conference. SMU is the only one of the bunch that has any prospects for serious improvement in the future.

In contrast, every Big East program has been to the big dance at least once over the past 10 years. St. John's, Seton Hall, & Providence all go there coming out of the toughest basketball conference conference in the country. Had they been playing in the Atlantic sun or a watered down CUSA or even the A10, I'm sure they could have gotten there a lot more often. The Big East is simply a much stronger conference top to bottom than the AAC except for UConn.

Yes I am counting UConn last year as getting a bid. They would have.

I think you have to on the Big East side of things seriously question Butler. I mean, even last year in the A10 they struggled some.

I think 5 years is much more relevant because of one major thing-- going back 10 years you have the NBA rule with players not having to go to college while 5 years that's gone. That's changed a lot- more than folks probably want to admit. Also, look at the 2 5 year periods. 2004-08 BE 22 AAC 13. Xavier 2006 auto bid. UCF 2004/05 auto bid. So real bids BE 21 AAC 11. 4.2-2.2. 2009-13 BE 24 AAC 18(counting UConn last year). Houston 2010 auto bid. So real bids BE 24 AAC 17. 4.8-3.4. I'd say it's a lot more likely that recent history means more than a bit further back history. 2004-08 it wasn't even remotely close. it's gotten a lot closer now. And, I would say for 8 of the 11 AAC schools, they will be getting WAY more exposure going forward than they ever have, which will help for recruiting. And, seemed like even for the 3 BE schools, they are getting better exposure now than before. For 7/10 BE schools, the exposure is still left to be seen if it's even the same as before. Let's see what the schedule looks like. For the other 3, should be a pretty big bump in exposure.

Bottom line with this though- we don't know how either conference will be with the current collection of schools. I mean, can Butler go 6/10 times like they have(and 4/5 last 5 years)? Can Xavier go 8/10 times like they have? Can Temple keep up this resurgence? Can SMU on the AAC side and Providence on the BE side scale the mountain. We just don't know. We'll start finding out soon though.

(08-28-2013 01:45 AM)billyjack Wrote:  Brother Stever,
You're handing out NCAA bids to Southern Methodist like they're potato chips, but you're still not exactly sure about the Friars chances of possibly maybe sorta poking their heads out of the cellar... you've decided to wait and see on that one... ok...

does Providence have a top 5 recruit coming in like SMU does(with the possibility of getting more)? I'd feel a lot better for Providence if Ledo had stayed.

Last year, Butler beat Indiana, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Vanderbilt, Marquette, Temple, Xavier and LaSalle... they "struggled some in the A-10" on their way to an 11-5 record and a 3rd place finish.

They then made the NCAAs, won a game, and barely missed out on the Sweet 16, losing to a team which 4 days later ran Miami (Fla) out of the building (30 pt lead late in 2nd half).

Butler was 6-7 against teams that finished .500 or better(counting OOC game with Xavier, conference tourney where they beat La Salle but lost to SLU). Of the 7 losses, 4 were by double digits. Butler was 7-0 vs the teams that finished sub .500. So, yes I would say they struggled some, especially against the top teams. They were 0-4 with an average Margin of Defeat of 16.

(08-28-2013 01:58 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 01:45 AM)billyjack Wrote:  Brother Stever,
You're handing out NCAA bids to Southern Methodist like they're potato chips, but you're still not exactly sure about the Friars chances of possibly maybe sorta poking their heads out of the cellar... you've decided to wait and see on that one... ok...

does Providence have a top 5 recruit coming in like SMU does(with the possibility of getting more)? I'd feel a lot better for Providence if Ledo had stayed.

Does Kris Dunn count? He was the top PG in the 2012 class.
Does Brandon Austin? He's top 40 for 2013.
Does Jalen Lindsey? He's top 50 for 2014
Later today, 7'-1" Paschal Chukwu is expected to commit. He's top 50 for 2014.
Carson Derosiers transfered from Wake. He's 7'-0" and was top 50 out of high school.
Tyler Harris transfered from NC State. He was top 100 out of high school in 2011.

(08-28-2013 02:20 AM)stever20 Wrote:  Butler was 6-7 against teams that finished .500 or better(counting OOC game with Xavier, conference tourney where they beat La Salle but lost to SLU). Of the 7 losses, 4 were by double digits. Butler was 7-0 vs the teams that finished sub .500. So, yes I would say they struggled some, especially against the top teams. They were 0-4 with an average Margin of Defeat of 16.

Please just stop. I feel like a monkey in the nuclear age.

I just rattled off eight (8) Butler wins off the top of my head, vs teams over .500... They probably had more. You just said they only won 6...?

(08-28-2013 02:27 AM)billyjack Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 02:20 AM)stever20 Wrote:  Butler was 6-7 against teams that finished .500 or better(counting OOC game with Xavier, conference tourney where they beat La Salle but lost to SLU). Of the 7 losses, 4 were by double digits. Butler was 7-0 vs the teams that finished sub .500. So, yes I would say they struggled some, especially against the top teams. They were 0-4 with an average Margin of Defeat of 16.

Please just stop. I feel like a monkey in the nuclear age.

I just rattled off eight (8) Butler wins off the top of my head, vs teams over .500... They probably had more. You just said they only won 6...?

Butler had 6 wins vs teams that finished .500 or better in their conference... and 7 losses. They were 0-4 vs the top 2 teams losing by an average of 16 points. How is that anything but struggling?

Vanderbilt was not a quality win last year. They finished 16-17.

Xavier was 17-14. Hardly a quality win(and they lost to them by 15 in a 2nd game).

(08-28-2013 02:24 AM)billyjack Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 01:58 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 01:45 AM)billyjack Wrote:  Brother Stever,
You're handing out NCAA bids to Southern Methodist like they're potato chips, but you're still not exactly sure about the Friars chances of possibly maybe sorta poking their heads out of the cellar... you've decided to wait and see on that one... ok...

does Providence have a top 5 recruit coming in like SMU does(with the possibility of getting more)? I'd feel a lot better for Providence if Ledo had stayed.

Does Kris Dunn count? He was the top PG in the 2012 class.
Does Brandon Austin? He's top 40 for 2013.
Does Jalen Lindsey? He's top 50 for 2014
Later today, 7'-1" Paschal Chukwu is expected to commit. He's top 50 for 2014.
Carson Derosiers transfered from Wake. He's 7'-0" and was top 50 out of high school.
Tyler Harris transfered from NC State. He was top 100 out of high school in 2011.

a huge difference between top 40/50 and top 5. top 5 kid is a program changer

BUTLER BEAT:
Indiana, #1 in nation.
North Carolina, #9 in nation.
Gonzaga, #8 in nation, later #1 in nation.
Temple, who had beaten Syracuse.
Marquette, who finished 1st in the Big East and made the Elite-8.

They went 27-9.
They finished 3rd in a 5-bid conference.
They played Saint Louis 3 times.
They played LaSalle twice.
They played Marquette twice.