Bracket Breakdown: Big East Flirts With Greatness

When it comes to determining the best conference in the country, almost any measure is subjective. Mathematically objective, the RPI is a blunt tool that doesn’t provide much insight about a conference’s overall strength, especially from top to bottom.

However, the percentage of conference teams invited to the NCAA Tournament is a good indicator of a conference’s strength.  Another barometer of conference strength should be the number of teams with losing records that receive at-large bids.

That metric would go hand-in-hand with the percentage of teams in the tournament. Logically, if a 12-team conference gets seven teams in the tournament, at least one team is likely to have a losing record in conference play. If seven teams in the conference had at least a .500 conference record, it would mean the bottom of the conference is weak, and the top teams simply had beaten up on those cellar dwellers and split games among the rest. This season, the Big Ten exemplifies that profile. Iowa, Indiana and Penn State are abysmal and have combined for 10 conference wins. Meanwhile, six of the 11 teams in the misnamed Big Ten have at least a .500 conference record.

However, a conference like the Big East is a different beast. All but two of the conference’s 16 teams have at least five wins in Big East play entering the final week of the regular season. Eight teams have .500 or better Big East records and eight teams are worse than .500. And one of those teams with a .500 or better record is Notre Dame, which likely sits on the wrong side of the bubble.

Come Selection Sunday, at least two Big East teams could make the NCAA Tournament as at-large teams with a losing conference record. That’s a big deal because it has happened only 29 times since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985. Eight teams in the past decade have reached the tournament with losing conference records, including Arizona and Maryland last season. According to the latest Mock Tournament, there are eight teams flirting with records that generally don’t deliver at-large bids:

• Connecticut (17-12, 7-9)
• Louisville (19-10, 10-6)
• Illinois (18-11, 10-6)
• Cincinnati (16-12, 7-9)
• Notre Dame (19-10, 8-8)
• South Florida (17-11, 7-9)
• Seton Hall (16-11, 7-9)
• Minnesota (17-11, 8-8)

Besides the six Big East teams, two Big Ten teams, Illinois and Minnesota, appear on the list because they have a lot of overall losses. Since 1985, only 18 teams have earned an at-large bid with 13 losses or more, and no team has ever reached the tournament as an at-large team with 15 losses. Of those eight teams, the latest Mock Tournament has the top four in the field. Based on averages since 1985, only one of those eight teams should reach the field if they can’t avoid the 13-loss/sub-.500 threshold.

With two games remaining in the regular season, several of these teams figure to enter the danger zone. And that doesn’t count their conference tournaments, in which none of these teams is expected to cut down the nets and earn an automatic bid. So that will add another loss to most of these teams’ overall records.

It’s a logical conclusion that any team that reaches the NCAA Tournament with a losing conference record or 13 or more losses overall represents a powerful conference. Their inclusion would signify that the selection committee respects the conference highly. Indeed, those six Big East teams have 12 wins against the RPI top 25, mostly against the Big East elite. They have proven they can beat the best teams in the country, many of which come from their conference.

The ACC is the only conference to field two teams with losing conference records in the NCAA Tournament in the same season. If the Big East can match that feat, which seems likely, the conference will be poised to proclaim that it has had one of the best seasons in history.

Of course, when the dust settles and there are four teams heading to Indianapolis, the Big East’s season will only be considered one of the best ever if the conference has at least one representative in the Final Four.