There’s no defending the Big East’s NCAA tournament performance. The conference was deserving of 11 bids – Marquette was the “worst” of its tourney teams, and it’s still playing – but the way its top teams performed ensured it wouldn’t escape criticism.
Pitt, Notre Dame, Louisville and Syracuse out before the Sweet 16? Nothing will ease that. Even if the league’s two remaining teams, UConn and Marquette, win every one of their remaining tournament games, the league won’t match its Performance Against Seed Expectations (PASE). Can’t happen.
But … what say we move on from only talking about the Big East, shall we? It’s hardly the only conference that will fall short of its expected tournament wins.
The table below details the PASE for each conference and what’s left for those conferences to do.
For instance: Unless Kansas – the Big 12’s only remaining team – wins it all, the Big 12 will fall short. The Big Ten (Ohio State and Wisconsin) and SEC (Florida and Kentucky) both have two teams remaining, but each need two wins to meet expectations.
Even the Mountain West, which has two of its three teams still in play, needs another win to meet its seed expectations because San Diego State and BYU have done exactly what they should, nothing more.
As for the teams who have met expectations thus far, it includes the A-10 (bravo, Richmond and Temple), CAA (VCU, getting it done), Pac-10 (‘Zona, Washington, UCLA all did what they should’ve) and the ACC.
In fact, gotta give it up for the ACC. The league’s fallen short of its PASE the last few years when only Duke or North Carolina would win tournament games. This year, with the Devils, Tar Heels still around and Florida State joining them, the ACC’s done well thus far.
But even it could use one more win.
You also can follow me on Twitter @MikeMillerNBC.
-
- rensational - Mar 22, 2011 at 10:04 PM
-
Nobody cares how many wins a league racks up. We care about beating the teams you’re “supposed” to, how many of a conference’s best teams are left standing at the VERY least when it comes to the Sweet 16, how well teams from a league played and the league’s regular season reputation. Looking at it like that, this is 2 or 3 years in a row now that the Big East has clearly tanked more than any other major conference. This season, it’s now why the Big Ten has the #1 conference ranking. I think with the exception of maybe Purdue (which, I’m not surprised Purdue is out now), the Big Ten has done exactly what is expected–more, if you look at how many teams the Big Ten got into the Tournament vs how many were expected to get in up until the week before selection. So many experts were saying Wisconsin would lose to Belmont, and Wisconsin is now in the Sweet 16. Ohio State is killing teams, not to mention they are a Big Ten with a #1 seed still standing, unlike the Big East. Michigan killed Tennessee and could have beaten Duke to grab a surprise Sweet 16 spot, and Michigan didn’t have a chance in people’s minds to do that–people complained about Michigan getting an #8 seed. Penn State arguably shouldn’t even have made the Tournament, and a lot of people felt the same about Illinois and/or Michigan State.
These types of things are how conferences are evaluated in the Tournament, particularly by fans, not some PASE chart.
-
- chadinsa - Mar 26, 2011 at 8:29 AM
-
The only difference between your system and PASE is that you assume every higher seed should beat every lower seed while PASE takes the averages of how often teams actually do win games based on their seeding. By your logic, the only team that is ‘supposed’ to win championship is Ohio State as they are the overall number one seed. And if “how many of a conference’s best teams are left standing at the VERY least when it comes to the Sweet 16″ is a barometer of how good a conference is, wouldn’t an even better measure be how many teams they send on to the Elite Eight, the Final Four, the championship? My point isn’t that the having one team in the Elite Eight is better than two in the Sweet Sixteen but that fans tend to manipulate numbers so that their conference looks best. Regarding your comment that “the Big Ten has done exactly what is expected–more”, by your own methodology the Big Ten should win 11 games but they have only won seven, or 63.6%, with no chance of winning any more. Also, according to your system, The Big East should win 18 games while they’ve actually won 11, or 61.1%. The percentages are so close that the only real difference between the two conferences is that the Big East still has a team alive, which could win a few more games and, based on the way of tabulating success that you provided, cause the Big East to outperform the Big Ten in the NCAA tournament.
P.S. I abhor the Big East but I’m tired of people like you subjectively spewing forth ‘facts’ so as to make their team or conference seem the best. Just enjoy March Madness.
