(10-23-2013 12:05 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: (10-22-2013 04:47 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote: (10-22-2013 03:41 PM)dbackjon Wrote: (10-22-2013 03:39 PM)NBPirate Wrote: Wait, how can the AAC be considered the Go5 in basketball? Easily a power conference
At least half :)
Houston/Cinci/UConn/Memphis/Temple have good pedigrees
I'm not even sure about the half. It's almost 30 years since Houston's made it to a Final Four and over 50 years since Temple's been there. Cincy's been there once in the past 50 years and not at all in the past 20. Memphis has had their only 2 Final Four appearances in the past 40 years both vacated. UConn is the only program that resembles what power basketball conferences are built around and no one can put the words "power" and "conference" together in the same phrase based on the accomplishments of one program.
Is Gonzaga a power team? How about Wisconsin, Illinois, NC State, Pitt, or Michigan? Or for that matter, any PAC, Big 12, or SEC team outside of UCLA, KU, Florida, and UK?
If you think ANY of those schools have "good pedigrees," then you have to include UC in the list.
6 Final Fours, 2 national titles, and we spent all but 3 weeks of 2000 at number 1 before losing the POY to a broken leg in the conference championship game (yes, that's the last time I cried). But on top of this, our recent accomplishments over the past 25 years can match up with every one of the teams I mentioned.
I give Mick Cronin a lot of credit. He took a program that was dismantled by the president so badly that it made Tom Crean's job at Indiana look easy by comparison. He's done an outstanding job at rebuilding the roster, and it's getting stronger every year.
Yes, Cincy has 6 Final Fours, but only one of those is in the past 50 years and none have come in the past 20 years. The rest and the 2 titles are ancient history. Do you really think that Cincy is the only school to have been the victim of a bad "break". If your claim to fame is one Final Four in the past 50 years and another that "might have been", then you're really not a power program.
Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan all have trips to the Final Four since 2000, making them relevant at the highest levels in that time frame. Cincy hasn't even been to an Elite 8 in that period.
I really don't think that Pitt and NC State have good pedigrees. Pitt has been a huge disappointment in the postseason and NC State's biggest accomplishment - like Cincy - are pretty much ancient history. Gonzaga has been incredibly consistent in getting to the tournament over the past 15 years, but they are realistically the best of the mid majors, not a power program.
Power conferences tend to have a couple of programs at the top that win championships and get to multiple Final Fours, followed by a collection of programs that combine for Final Fours.
You brought up 3 Big Ten schools, so let's look at that conference. Not so much success at winning championships lately except for Michigan State in 2000, but look at their collective success at getting to Final Fours since then:
Michigan State - NC, 5 Final fours since 2000
Ohio State - 2 Final Fours since 2000
Wiscy, Indy, Illini, Michigan - 4 Final fours combined since 2000
That's what a power conference looks like. It's not how Illinois compares to Cincinnati; it's what the total collection looks like.
You mentioned NC State, but look at the old ACC as a whole since 2000.
North Carolina - 2 NC's, 4 Final Fours
Duke - 2 NC's, 3 Final Fours
Maryland, Georgia Tech - NC, 3 Final Fours combined
The new ACC will lose Maryland but will replace them with:
Syracuse - NC, 2 Final Fours
Louisville - NC, 3 Final fours (arriving in 2014)
Again the conference profile is similar to the B1G both at the top of the conference and what the group does collectively. The AAC doesn't have that. They have one program, UConn, which is typical of what you'd find at the top of a power conference. After that, it's Memphis with 1 vacated Final Four and not a single other program to the Final Four in the past 2 decades. Programs like Cincinnati and Temple are what the true power conferences fill in for depth, which is exactly what Cincy was in the Big East. In the AAC, they're one of the Big 4, a spot they'd never fill in a true power conference.