The hype surrounding the Big East is ridiculous. It's crap and needs to be flushed.
The ESPN slurp fest constantly building up the Big East to astronomic proportions and levels of superiority is ridiculous. Do not misunderstand these words, the Big East is a very good conference, but the level to which the conference is being advertised is preposterous. To help support that statement, this article will look at the numbers to bring the hype back down to manageable levels by comparing the unhyped Big 10 to what will be proven to be an over hyped Big East.
All rankings are AP rankings and RPI projections are current as as of Jan 29 2011 according to RealTimeRPI.com:
Big 10
- 6 ranked teams of 11 teams in conference (Ohio State, #12 Purdue, #16 Minnesota, #17 Wisconsin, #20 Illinois, #25 Michigan St) 54% ranked.
- Avearge RPI: 59.0.
- Standard Deviation: 56.6.
Big East
- 7 ranked teams of 16 teams in conference (#2 Pitt, #5 UConn, #8 Villanova, #9 Syracuse, #15 Notre Dame, #21 Georgetown, #23 Louisville) 43% ranked.
- Average RPI: 53.8.
- Standard Deviation: 61.0
A) The Big East is amazing because they are the deepest conference in the nation - FALSE. The numbers show a mere 5 spots difference between the mean (meaning average) ranking of a Big East team and the mean ranking for the Big 10. Up front, that would lead you to believe that the Big East is better. But remember, a conference isn't as good as the best teams, they are as good as the conference as a whole (see ACC when Duke was ranked #1 while no other team was ranked). However, the Standard Deviation, which is the calculation that shows the amount of outliers from the average, favors the Big 10. This would show that the BAD teams in the Big East are REALLY bad and the good teams are REALLY good - while the Big 10 is better from top to bottom.
And for all those ACC/SEC haters that will appear in the comments section, yes the SEC, is significantly lower due to the outliers of Auburn (310), and Mississippi State (183) while only having 3 top 25 teams (#14 Kentucky, #19 Vanderbilt, #24 Florida). It is definitely a 'down year'.
B) The Big East only loses because they face the toughest competition - FALSE. The Big East's best teams seem to be equal opportunity losers. For instance Syracuse, after starting 18-0 have lost four straight. "Oh but it's the Big East, they face tougher teams" you say. OK, sure, they lost to RPI #6 Pitt, RPI #10 Villanova, but then they dropped games to RPI #93 Seton Hall and RPI #66 Marquette. Of the 18 wins they started out with, only 4 games came against RPI top 50 teams... the turd that was floating at the top of the conference is now sinking.
Villanova seems to have taken a similar path. After starting 16-1, the Wildcats have lost 3 of 4. "No seriously, it's the Big East, the losses have to be to good teams because that's all we have!" Once again, I'll give you some losses qualify as losses to good teams, including the losses to #4 Connecticut and #8 Georgetown but #95 Providence - a bad loss. And each of those 3 losses have occurred in 3 of the last 4 games. The stink seems to be wofting and it is coming from Jay Wright's locker room and bench.
If we go West and turn to the top Big 10 squads, Purdue, the second highest ranked Big 10 school has lost 3 of 5 but all were to top 20 RPI teams on the road.Wisconsin, the third highest ranked Big 10 school dropped 3 of 7 but all have been to top 50 RPI teams on the road and Minnesota lost over Thanksgiving to a bad Virginia team but have since only lost 3 games all to top 35 teams.
Result - Big 10 is the deepest and best conference at this point in time. - TRUE
Statement A clarified that the Big 10 was really the most consistent conference. Statement B showed that the Big 10 is the real conference that is cannibalistic due to the tough strength of schedule. Thus, it can be asserted that the Big 10 is where all the hype should be, not the Big East.
I would ALMOST agree with this...if I were an idiot (which I probably am, but that's irrelevant). First, your numbers when comparing the conferences side by side (averages, standard deviations, etc) are typically used when comparing apples to apples. The Big East is roughly 50% larger than the B10, as it has 5 more teams, so naturally the numbers are going to seem a bit watered down. The most glaring problem I see when you were conjuring your numbers to rank the conferences, is that the site you used to rank them, already has ranked the conferences. Their numbers aren't biased and have no opinions. They rank the Big East number 1, with the toughest SOS rank as a conference, and the Big10 2nd, with the 2nd toughest SOS rank. That to me signals the end of the discussion. No bias, no personal judgements.
ReplyDeleteAlright, you may not be an idiot, but you are definitely a nerd and have just started a nerd fight.
ReplyDeleteThe article is comparing like items - Conference to Conference. The numbers are the same in each conference RPI, thus apples to apples.
The only difference here is the sample size is larger for the Big East, thus the standard deviation is truer with the larger sample - but since both populations have a sample of 100% the statement is still true as the standard deviation is 100% of the population.
Big 10 is deeper than the Big East and more consistent because the standard deviation is closer to the average and the averages are comparable.
Gee Wiz guys. Let me get my pocket protector, my college ecomics book, world of warcraft guide and jump in the argument.
ReplyDelete