Need help - Big East v. ACC analysis

[HoyaSox04]

Hoya faithful and loyal talkboard members,

So I have a running bet with people in my office that, by the end of the year, the Big East will prove to be a better conference top-to-bottom throughout the year than the ACC. I'm sure some of you will think I'm crazy for doing this, but I'm pretty sure that it's true. Anyways, I'm devising a spreadsheet with formulas and such to help evaluate the two conferences against each other, and these are some of the variables that I think I am going to take into account:

1) Average final RPI for conference
2) Average SoS for conference

I also want to take into account the following:

1) # of teams in the NCAA Tournament
2) Finish of teams in the NCAA's
3) Final poll rankings of teams

etc etc etc. I'm just unsure about how I should go about this, and also unsure about other variables that I should factor into the overall decision. Now, obviously I want the Big East to finish ahead of the ACC, but I also want to do a fair statistical analysis of the two against each other. So, my question for all of you is:

What are your suggestions? How do you think I can measure the above variables in a way that's fair to both conferences? What other variables should I look at (ie:# of all-americans, other post-season honors, etc)?

I know this is kind of a complex and strange question, but I figure since we all love the Hoyas and BE basketball and despise everything to do with the ACC, that you would all be the best resource for this. I need some way to shut up the Duke/UNC/Maryland fans in my office. Maybe, once we're finished, I can send this analysis on to Dukie V and the other idiots at Bristol who fawn over the ACC...

Please help!!!!

and... GO HOYAS! WHUP SHU!!!

[Deleted]

A quick glance shows that BE is 5-1 against the ACC this year:
Big East wins:
St. John's over VA Tech
St. John's over NC State
WVU over NC State
BC over Clemson
GU over Clemson
ACC win:
Wake over Providence

I may have missed one or two, but include that if it helps.

Also, note that two of the worst teams in the Big East last year (VA Tech and Miami) have settled nicely into the middle of the pack in the ACC so far this year...

[FOTP]

Big East is 5-1 head to head, but some of those match-ups were certainly advantageous towards the BE. Overall the ACC is #1 in the RPI and the Big East is #3. Pac-10 is #2. Those won't change at all coming down the stretch. The differences are too wide and all the games left are in house.

It really comes down to out of conference RPI. The ACC traditionally plays a tougher out of conference schedule across the board in preparation for the ACC schedule.

The Big East gets killed by the Syr, Pitt etc. of the BE that play relatively weak schedules and never leaver the home state.

[HoyaNCCT]

Funny you mention this. I did this yesterday when I had a few minutes to kill. I took data from RealTimeRPI.com and created a very simple spreadsheet that looked at the average RPI and the standard deviation of the RPI's within each conference.

My quick and dirty analysis showed the average RPI of the ACC was slightly higher and the standard deviation of the ACC to be lower. This, to me, was showing that the ACC has, on average, slightly better teams and the conference is more competitive.

However, this of course is RPI based data which in and of itself has various flaws that will only be magnified...

[Deleted]

FOTP said:

Big East is 5-1 head to head, but some of those match-ups were certainly advantageous towards the BE.

Stop making so much darn sense, FOTP....
Now those matchups look favorable to the BE, bu at the beginning of the season, most would have predicted those 6 head-to-heads to favor the ACC overall, probably 4-2:
ACC wins:
Wake over Providence
NC State over St. John's and WVU
VA Tech over St. John's
BE wins:
BC over Clemson
GU over Clemson (you could argue toss-up at the beginning of the year on this one)
5-1 in favor of the BE is definitely better than expected....

[TrueHoyaBlue]

And there are two more games coming up, which (on paper, anyway) are definitely not in the Big East's favor. This Wednesday, Virginia at Providence -- good time for the Friars to break out of that losing streak -- and in a couple of weeks, North Carolina at UConn. Probably not a huge impact on Conference RPIs (though Nova's win over Kansas did push the BE ahead of the Big XII in Conference RPI), but could be big in head to head. Plus, anyway you look at it, St. John's should not have beaten anyone in the ACC if that conference is better than the Big East.

[SFHoya99]

The ACC is better, but not by much.

You shouldn't use polls. They are useless, and don't mean anything.

End of year Sagarin and Ponmeroy rankings (post-tournament) would be a nice addition.

Record in the tourney is nice as well.

[HoyaChris]

If you want to win the bet you need to focus it solely on the tournament. RPI, Sagarin and Pomeroy are largely set in their aggregate league totals since most remaining games are in conference and the ACC has too big a lead right now. I think it is a fairly safe bet that the Big East will have as many teams make the tournament as will the ACC. A simple bet would be the aggregate NCAA tourney wins for each conference.

[IceHoya]

Funny you mention this idea... I actually have a similar bet going with a Twerp grad in my office. Wasn't really sure how to work it either, but here's what we came up with. At first it was going to be most teams into the tourney, my Big East vs his ACC. But then I thought that might be a bad idea because the ACC will probably get teams in that don't deserve to be there based on their reputation. In retrospect, we'll probably get more in, at least according to the latest Bracketology and such. But oh well. Then it was going to be more teams into the Sweet 16, but then I reconsidered because they probably are a little bit more top heavy than we are. Their top teams probably are a little bit stronger than our top teams despite my belief that we are better from top to bottom.

So what we're doing is XX amount of dollars on each round of the tourney, from start to finish. Same amount on Rounds of 65, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, and the champ. After agreeing to this and upon further review, I figure I'll probably wind up on the losing end, but hey its about pride so I'm okay with that. I figure the BE will get more teams in, and then hopefully can win the 2nd round, then push a few rounds down the stretch. The Rounds of 2 and 1 are what scare me (can anyone really see BC making the final game? I'd think Cuse is our best bet, but still probably not all that likely, whereas there's a couple of ACC teams that have a legit shot at being there at the end).

Anyway, that's just how I have it working.. pretty much agree with HoyaChris that its gotta be based on the tournament from here on out...

[Fan Of The Game]

This will become an even more interesting argument once the Big East expands to 16 teams.

How do you judge a 16 team conference? Is it the best conference because it gets the most teams into the tournament? Do you equally weigh the best team and the worst team? I guess it all depends on why you're asking the question.

If you're trying to argue "My team with X and Y record is better than your team with X and Y record because we play in a tougher conference" then you have to look at all the competition/every team in the conference. But if you're arguing just simply "What's a more successful conference" then I think you more heavily weigh the teams that are tourney-bound.

I think to judge regular season results I would sum up the seedings of all the teams in your conference that made the NCAAs and add them together. So if BC were a one seed they'd get 16 points, add #2 seed Syracuse's 15 points, and #7 Georgetown's 9 points, etc. Compare that with the ACC. That would factor in both number of tourney-bound teams as well as how good those tourney-bound teams are.

[lichoya68]

head to head and then when we beat these suckers in the ncaa then thats all she wrote... who won the last two mens ncaa bball basketball championship gee i forgot GO HOYAS SINK THE PIRATE SHIP WATCH OUT THROW THE EXTRA SIXTH MAN PIRATE OVERBOARD IF HE SHOWS UP AGAIN

[lichoya68]

PS MAYBE WE SHOULD REINSTITUE THE BIG EAST ACC CHALLENGE WED WIN THEY ARE PROBABLY AFRAID WE WERE THE FIRST TO DO THAT I THINK THEYRE PROBABLY CHICKEN NOW THAT THEY GOT OUR SCUBS WHO ACTUALLY DID BETTER THAN EVERYONE SAID AND THERE OUR BOTTOM FEEDERS PS MAYBE THAT SAYS SOMETHING GO HOYAS BEAT THE HALL AT LEAST THERE IN THE BIGEAST NEXT YEAR AGAIN ;D

[lichoya68]

PS SORRY FOR THE LACK OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE .....IVE ALWAYS BEEN A MORE EMOTIONAL ANAYLST IN MORE WAYS THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE GO HOYAS THIS IS BIG