Best Non BCS conference?

[brannigan73]

I don't know for the life of me how some people are saying its the Mountain West Conference? The Atlantic Ten is going to possibly get double digit post season births between the NCAA and NIT. So what if the Mountain West conference has six good teams the Atlantic ten has 11including Temple, VCU, and Butler teams that can beat anybody anywhere. You are not going to see a Mountain West team go into Madison Square Garden and beat Syracuse like Temple. Butler and VCU have 3 Final Four appearances combined in the last 3 years and 4 Final Eight appearance combined. The math does not compute period. The A-10 is probably the fifth best conference actually but no worse then 6. Xavier, Temple, VCU, Butler, Dayton, Charlotte, LasSalle, St. Joes, Richmonds, St Louis, and UMass all have a great shot at playing in the post season. 1 or 2 of that list at most will not make it to NCAA or NIT.

[Jake0890]

A10

[Marchulenis]

Yeah, it's A10. But I like MWC, Horizon or C-USA.

[JN]

The Mountain West and IMO fairly clearly... although I like the A-10 as well.

Lets look at the Ken Pom rankings, which is a much better measure of team level than say the RPI.

The RPI loves the MWC but the schedule (intentional or not) can impact that. I am not relying on the RPI to state that the MWC is the best because it sort of sucks and does overrate the MWC this year (although it will certainly help the MWC at tourney time with top 50 wins being a key metric for the committee)

KenPom Ratings

MWC: (Average of 67) 18,22,23,40, 55, 76, 83, 144, 146 (Very Solid, but not as rosy as presented by the RPI)

A-10:: (Average of 100) 20,26,59,60,61,71,74,85,90,91,110,119,124,154,224,242

The MWC has more top teams - 33% of its teams are in the top 25. A-10 has 13% (I included VCU) because the cutoff at 25 was arbitrary)

The MWC has 56% of its teams in the top 60. The A-10 only has 31% (and I added the team that was 61)

The MWC doesn't have two bad bottom feeders.

You have to remember that the MWC only has 9 Teams. You can't just state the number of teams. If you have five good teams out of 9 its a hell of a good conference.


I'm not exactly sure where you are getting 11 "good" teams fom the Atlantic 10 that are NIT level. I don't see it. 11 teams still have a shot perhaps if things work out for them individually (but inherently it can't work out for all teams -- there has to be a W and L in each game), but 11 would not be in as of today. Not even close.

I will say though that the A-10 has the best tournament pedigree of any non power conference. Butler, Xavier and VCU have all had good stretches the past 10 years-- perhaps less so for VCU which is more recent (and I am not diminishing VCU).. just don't want diminish the fact that Butler and Xavier have done more.

Temple has been inconsistent. But I will say that if Xavier and Temple were at the levels they have been at the past few years, rather than this year, I would go with the A-10.

[jman3134]

Currently, I'd say that the Mountain West has the best competition from top to bottom. But, the A10 is right there, as JN mentioned.

I think it's going to be interesting to see how many teams the A10 gets into this year's dance.

[bballosophy]

Agreed, the A10 is pretty hot.