The Case for Dayton

[cu blujs]

I love how folks are saying here the Big Ten is overrated. I don't know if you can say that given it's VERY possible, if not likely, they could wind up with 3 elite 8 schools. And have to say it's very possible they could have 3 final 4 teams. Wisconsin over Arizona- very possible. Michigan St in the east- over UVA, UConn, Iowa St- very possible. Michigan over Kentucky,Louisville, Tennessee in the MW- wouldn't be a surprise.

The top three teams are good. The rest of the league was bad and greatly overrated. When Nebrask was your 4th place team, you are not good. The Ohio State couldn't score to save their lives most nights, Minnesota was bad, Iowa was good early, but took a real dive for some reason. Penn State, Indiana and Illinois were terrible. So, yeah, overall the Big Ten was overrated.

[BuckyBilliken]

I love how folks are saying here the Big Ten is overrated. I don't know if you can say that given it's VERY possible, if not likely, they could wind up with 3 elite 8 schools. And have to say it's very possible they could have 3 final 4 teams. Wisconsin over Arizona- very possible. Michigan St in the east- over UVA, UConn, Iowa St- very possible. Michigan over Kentucky,Louisville, Tennessee in the MW- wouldn't be a surprise.

The top three teams are good. The rest of the league was bad and greatly overrated. When Nebrask was your 4th place team, you are not good. The Ohio State couldn't score to save their lives most nights, Minnesota was bad, Iowa was good early, but took a real dive for some reason. Penn State, Indiana and Illinois were terrible. So, yeah, overall the Big Ten was overrated.

Dude, how can you say Minnesota was bad. I think they should have gotten into the tournament over Iowa. The B1G is consistently one of the best basketball conferences in the country. Give credit where credit is due.

[stever20]

I love how folks are saying here the Big Ten is overrated. I don't know if you can say that given it's VERY possible, if not likely, they could wind up with 3 elite 8 schools. And have to say it's very possible they could have 3 final 4 teams. Wisconsin over Arizona- very possible. Michigan St in the east- over UVA, UConn, Iowa St- very possible. Michigan over Kentucky,Louisville, Tennessee in the MW- wouldn't be a surprise.

The top three teams are good. The rest of the league was bad and greatly overrated. When Nebrask was your 4th place team, you are not good. The Ohio State couldn't score to save their lives most nights, Minnesota was bad, Iowa was good early, but took a real dive for some reason. Penn State, Indiana and Illinois were terrible. So, yeah, overall the Big Ten was overrated.

most folks wouldn't say that at all though. You aren't measured based on your 7th-9th place teams. You are measured on how good your top teams are. If they get 2-3 in the final 4, don't think many folks will say that they were overrated at all. You aren't overrated when your top 3 teams are in the elite 8. Period.

[SecureDaBall]

I love how folks are saying here the Big Ten is overrated. I don't know if you can say that given it's VERY possible, if not likely, they could wind up with 3 elite 8 schools. And have to say it's very possible they could have 3 final 4 teams. Wisconsin over Arizona- very possible. Michigan St in the east- over UVA, UConn, Iowa St- very possible. Michigan over Kentucky,Louisville, Tennessee in the MW- wouldn't be a surprise.

The top three teams are good. The rest of the league was bad and greatly overrated. When Nebrask was your 4th place team, you are not good. The Ohio State couldn't score to save their lives most nights, Minnesota was bad, Iowa was good early, but took a real dive for some reason. Penn State, Indiana and Illinois were terrible. So, yeah, overall the Big Ten was overrated.

It begs the question, is it better to have 3-4 dominant teams that can make a run every year or a conference with top-to-bottom parity. Personally, I'd rather have 3-4 dominant teams.

[Bill Marsh]

I love how folks are saying here the Big Ten is overrated. I don't know if you can say that given it's VERY possible, if not likely, they could wind up with 3 elite 8 schools. And have to say it's very possible they could have 3 final 4 teams. Wisconsin over Arizona- very possible. Michigan St in the east- over UVA, UConn, Iowa St- very possible. Michigan over Kentucky,Louisville, Tennessee in the MW- wouldn't be a surprise.

The top three teams are good. The rest of the league was bad and greatly overrated. When Nebrask was your 4th place team, you are not good. The Ohio State couldn't score to save their lives most nights, Minnesota was bad, Iowa was good early, but took a real dive for some reason. Penn State, Indiana and Illinois were terrible. So, yeah, overall the Big Ten was overrated.

It begs the question, is it better to have 3-4 dominant teams that can make a run every year or a conference with top-to-bottom parity. Personally, I'd rather have 3-4 dominant teams.

Nope. A conference is very vulnerable when it only has 3-4 teams who can contend. The strength of the Big Ten is demonstrated by the fact that it is NOT dependent on 3-4 teams. Indiana is the blue blood of the conference, yet they can have a down year, and the conference can still come up with a handful of top programs. That's parity and that's depth.

If a conference truly has only 3-4 teams who can contend, the when 1 or 2 of them drops off, the conference has nothing. Parity doesn't mean that everyone finishes at .500 in conference, it means that there is regular turnover at the top of the conference because in any given year, anyone can compete. It's about the fact that the conference is so strong, that anyone down as far as the middle of the pack can rise up in the postseason and make a deep run in th eNCAA tournament. From Villanova in 1985 to UConn in 2011, that's always been the hallmark of the Big East.

A strong conference with parity will establish its strength with lots of meaningful wins out of conference. Once that's done, there;s no worry if everyone finishes at .500 in conference because the stature of the conference is already recognized. The problem with the Big East this year was not that a lot of teams competed on even terms in conference, but that not enough teams won meaningful games OOC.

[stever20]

The thing is, even if the Big East had done really well OOC, especially this year, wouldn't have been viewed as good as the Big Ten. Why? SOS. All top 6 Big Ten teams had SOS in the top 109, with Michigan St being the 109(and only worse than 100 team).
Big East on the other hand- only had 3 in the top 120.

Case in point- Marquette if they win all the OOC games- still 33rd RPI. Think about that- 22-10 and only losses in conference(going 9-9 like you said)- and still 33rd in RPI. Marquette would have had the big wins like you said, but their OOC other games were such junk(their SOS was 178 OOC even playing Ohio St, Wisconsin, San Diego St, New Mexico, GW, and Arizona St). Played 5 of the worst 50 teams in the country.

Our teams have to upgrade the schedules and actually win those games. We played 30 games this year against the top 50 and went only 10-20. Meanwhile, we played 14 games against the worst 50 games. That just can't happen.

[augkash]

If dayton got a invite to nbe I know they would get better players. With this run and the fact they could play right away could bring in some top talent.

[BEwannabe]

I'm sure UD would accept if invited but it's starting to get very expensive. UD will have earned over 8mil after tomorrow night and then leaving all the jack X,butler left behind plus exit and entry fees. Big east might wave entrance fee?

[stever20]

I'm sure UD would accept if invited but it's starting to get very expensive. UD will have earned over 8mil after tomorrow night and then leaving all the jack X,butler left behind plus exit and entry fees. Big east might wave entrance fee?

Even now, it'd be over 6 million plus exit/entry fees. A win tomorrow and it'd be over 7.5 mil(250k per unit *6 years).

I doubt BE would waive any fees.

[ruechalgrin]

I haven't read through most of the thread, and don't want to waste my time since I can kind of guess how most of it has gone.

Obviously I am a Xavier fan. I don't really enjoy anything about Dayton (except for beating them every time they come to Cincinnati). I absolutely can't stand most of their delusional fans, some of which have already started visiting here. That being said, I would have no problem at all if the Big East brought them in. While the fan base is beyond annoying, they are passionate and that at least counts for something. More eyeballs wouldn't hurt FS1 and their fans also travel extremely well, which would be big for keeping the tourney at MSG. Also, with this tourney run, especially if they can beat Florida, they may end up with some name recognition nationally (which they have always claimed to have, but now that may actually have some reality to it) which honestly wouldn't hurt the conference right now either.

I don't think I want the Big East to expand so in no way am I campaigning for us to invite Dayton, but if expansion is on the horizon, I honestly can't come up with better options.

Chalmers, thanks for the post. IF the BE expands and IF Dayton were offered an invite, it would be a nanosecond before we accepted. We haven't had the name recognition for the past 30 years since basically the advent of the internet and national tv -- most Dayton fans realize we have underperformed based upon our investment. But 2014 has really helped the brand -- most watched games like Syracuse/Dayton, most social media impressions, etc., etc. One year does not make a team and everyone gets this, but we basically have had everything but NCAA success the last 10 years.

Saying that, the last 10 years we are about 60-80 mean & median on RPI and kenpom (2010 we were #18 in kenpom and won the NIT, but didn't get an invite to the NCAA where we could have done some damage). Also have 4 appearances in last 11 years (yes I am stretching it a year) and 4 wins. Also 25-11 versus BCS schools since 2007 (don't have earlier stats) So we have not been horrific.