Inter-conference records among the majors

[nelsonmuntz]

I’ve never said that. Not even once. As a matter of fact all I’ve basically done is post articles. I’m not on here saying how bad the Big East is this year. Go complain to Mike Anthony, Dave Borges, the ESPN writers, the CBS Sports writers, etc. I’m sure they’ll listen to your drivel.

You are trashing the Big East several posts above when I am simply pointing out a math problem with the current ratings models. Rather than discussing the issue, you take another recycled lazy cheap shot at the conference.

 

[ctchamps]

I’ve never said that. Not even once. As a matter of fact all I’ve basically done is post articles. I’m not on here saying how bad the Big East is this year. Go complain to Mike Anthony, Dave Borges, the ESPN writers, the CBS Sports writers, etc. I’m sure they’ll listen to your drivel.

Know that you are a messenger who has just been shot.

 

[RuffRuff]

You are trashing the Big East several posts above when I am simply pointing out a math problem with the current ratings models. Rather than discussing the issue, you take another recycled lazy cheap shot at the conference.

You do realize the entire country is on top of the quality of the BE? It’s not like we are making it up for fun. You can twist numbers all you want but the wide and accurate view is that the BE is way down.

 

[HooperScooper]

You are trashing the Big East several posts above when I am simply pointing out a math problem with the current ratings models. Rather than discussing the issue, you take another recycled lazy cheap shot at the conference.

Please show me where I trashed the Big East several posts above. I want to see this.

Are you talking about the post that I linked below? I'll let you in on a secret on the way I've been posting on here since I joined. The italicized part of my posts are taken directly from an article that I link below the excerpt that is italicized. That was Mike Anthony "trashing" the Big East and not me. I offered no opinion on the Big East in that post. Do you understand the difference?

Post in thread 'Big East December '25 Thread'

Dec 31, 2025

Another article on the subject of the Big East not helping UConn this year. From Mike Anthony. I think we're all fully aware at this point.

But, beyond that, will the conference help prepare UConn for the March pursuit of another national championship? If so, to what extent? Will the Big East round robin bolster the Huskies’ resume? Not really.

The conference is down, way down. UConn is currently the Big East’s only ranked team. The Huskies, despite key injuries, plowed through their nonconference gauntlet, losing only to No. 1 Arizona (without starters Tarris Reed Jr. and...

• HooperScooper

• 

 

[nelsonmuntz]

You do realize the entire country is on top of the quality of the BE? It’s not like we are making it up for fun. You can twist numbers all you want but the wide and accurate view is that the BE is way down.

We got it. You and your friend make the same point in almost every single freaking thread. Since presumably everyone else on this board can read and follows basketball and they have access to at least some of the various published ratings, they can all draw their own conclusions without you bleating at us from your soapbox.

The other problem with your posts on this topic is that you are wrong. The Big East is not WAY down. It is the #3 conference in RPI and #5 in most of the efficiency ratings, a little behind the ACC in those efficiency ratings, and way ahead of the MWC at 6. For you to be right, the Big East would have to be at least below the MWC. You have never provided any evidence that the Big East is closer to the mid majors than it is to the other majors, yet you keep making the same assertion.

I am trying to have a discussion about the math issue with the efficiency ratings. Do you have something to add on that topic?

 

[RuffRuff]

We got it. You and your friend make the same point in almost every single freaking thread. Since presumably everyone else on this board can read and follows basketball and they have access to at least some of the various published ratings, they can all draw their own conclusions without you bleating at us from your soapbox.

The other problem with your posts on this topic is that you are wrong. The Big East is not WAY down. It is the #3 conference in RPI and #5 in most of the efficiency ratings, a little behind the ACC in those efficiency ratings, and way ahead of the MWC at 6. For you to be right, the Big East would have to be at least below the MWC. You have never provided any evidence that the Big East is closer to the mid majors than it is to the other majors, yet you keep making the same assertion.

I am trying to have a discussion about the math issue with the efficiency ratings. Do you have something to add on that topic?

 

[HooperScooper]

Please show me where I trashed the Big East several posts above. I want to see this.

Just as I figured.

 

[HooperScooper]

Please show me where I trashed the Big East several posts above. I want to see this.

@nelsonmuntz, are you going to answer this? Of course you're not, because you don't have anything to show. You shouldn't accuse someone of something if you don't have evidence to back it up. If you want articles that only you deem as sufficiently positive for your liking then move to China or Russia and take over for Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

@nelsonmuntz, are you going to answer this? Of course you're not, because you don't have anything to show. You shouldn't accuse someone of something if you don't have evidence to back it up. If you want articles that only you deem as sufficiently positive for your liking then move to China or Russia and take over for Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin.

This bit you are doing is pathetic even by internet message board standards. You stalk me around the board, making cracks about the Big East (see post 47 in this thread) and agreeing with any poster that makes a dig at the Big East, or takes a dig at me for that matter (which you have done in the last hour in the Big East NET thread), then pretend to be indignant when I call you on it and imply I should do a complete audit of your posting history to prove something that I don't care about. This is the laziest gaslighting I have ever seen on this board, and that is saying something.

I have spelled out my position clearly in the 1st and 8th post of this thread, yet you continually misrepresent and exaggerate what I post, and you do it continually, and now are trolling and making a transparent attempt to hijack and derail this thread.

Give it a rest.

 

[HooperScooper]

Give it a rest.

Will do. And you do the same.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

View attachment 115353

It is strange that given college sports’ long history of favoritism towards certain schools and conferences, and the SEC mostly face planting in the CFP despite conventional wisdom being that they dominate that sport, that it is impossible for you to consider that maybe the SEC is overrated in basketball too.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

How is the SEC 35-41 vs. the other majors yet currently has a rating that is the third highest KenPom of any conference in the last 8 years. How is that possible?

No one has been able to explain this.

 

[3rdbass]

I think this thread needs to be closed. It was a joke to begin with and now is just bickering with Nelson who is too stubborn to listen.

 

[3rdbass]

I think this thread needs to be locked. It was a joke to begin with and now is just bickering with Nelson who is too stubborn to listen

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I think this thread needs to be locked. It was a joke to begin with and now is just bickering with Nelson who is too stubborn to listen

Why was it a joke to begin? This thread contains several analyses and a discussion of a series of models that have a very important impact on UConn's basketball program, and these discussions do not appear to exist anywhere else on the internet.

Your posts fall into two categories: 1) you like a certain player or team, or 2) you don't like a certain player or team. Thanks for your contributions to the Boneyard.

 

[FightOnCT]

I have never fully trusted any of these models as even if there is no true bias towards or against any specific schools or conferences, there will be some inherent bias in how certain things are weighed. Whoever created any of these models logically would have placed more or less value on pace of play, defensive efficiency, overall scoring, etc based on personal preferences.

The final straw for me was late last season when one of these (I believe Kenpom) had Duke's 24-25 squad rated higher than our 23-24 team. I believe they also rated the Virginia and Baylor title teams higher than our 23-24 team. We'd win at least 90% of the head to head matchups against any of them.

KenPom’s adjusted net ratings (the +/- numbers) aren’t meant to be compared across other years. They simply represent how much that team would be favored over the average team (0.00) in that year specifically.

There was a notoriously massive falloff last year after the top 6 or so which explains why Duke, Auburn, etc. had such massive numbers compared to ours. Florida’s rating was about the same as ours in 2024 and they barely beat 2025 UConn.

 

[pepband99]

No one has been able to explain this.

The amount of people who just can't get KenPom in this thread is amazing.

First off - the ratings for conferences throw out ~1/2 of the conference, in all likelihood, since they only rate teams expected to finish .500 or better in conference.

Looking at W/L is also just wrong for KenPom, so stop comparing it to the (wrong per above) OOC W/L record. It's an efficiency rating. Heavily summarized, if you do better against the expected KenPom spread, win or lose, you go up. If you do worse, you go down. It's really not hard.

Also - saying thing like "rewards teams for running up the score" is a bit misleading, too. By rating the expected results, it only compares to what that team was supposed to do to an opponent. A 30 pt win, if you were expected to win by 40, you go down.

My guess - there are probably a couple of outliers that are driving the results, but the RPI would have those, too (e.g. would be CCSU beating BC).

If you actually want to constructively discuss this, and I have time, I could probably find the key data points that are driving this.

Also - just to add - KenPom's early season rankings have some weight to last year's ranking, which was historically high for the SEC. It's likely almost completely sunsetted now, but that could have driven the numbers up eartier in the season.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The amount of people who just can't get KenPom in this thread is amazing.

First off - the ratings for conferences throw out ~1/2 of the conference, in all likelihood, since they only rate teams expected to finish .500 or better in conference.

Looking at W/L is also just wrong for KenPom, so stop comparing it to the (wrong per above) OOC W/L record. It's an efficiency rating. Heavily summarized, if you do better against the expected KenPom spread, win or lose, you go up. If you do worse, you go down. It's really not hard.

Also - saying thing like "rewards teams for running up the score" is a bit misleading, too. By rating the expected results, it only compares to what that team was supposed to do to an opponent. A 30 pt win, if you were expected to win by 40, you go down.

My guess - there are probably a couple of outliers that are driving the results, but the RPI would have those, too (e.g. would be CCSU beating BC).

If you actually want to constructively discuss this, and I have time, I could probably find the key data points that are driving this.

Also - just to add - KenPom's early season rankings have some weight to last year's ranking, which was historically high for the SEC. It's likely almost completely sunsetted now, but that could have driven the numbers up eartier in the season.

Are you arguing that the ratings in KenPom are based on a team's performance against KenPom's ratings? That makes the model even more useless than I thought. Actually, that is not what the model is doing, but I wanted to mock your explanation.

All the efficiency models reward teams for running up the score. They don't care if a basket is scored with 5 seconds left in a 50 point win or is the first basket of the game in a 50 point win. As a result, teams that want to improve their NET need to pour it on. The SEC and Big 12 have proved this for the last couple of years.

KenPom does not throw out half the conference for his conference ratings.

Finally, if you like the model, no one is stopping you from using it however you want. I am simply saying efficiency models, as currently constructed, should not be used for selection or seeding of the NCAA Tournament field.

 

[dennismenace]

There has been a lot of criticism of the Big East, including quite a few on this board comparing the league to a mid-major, so I put together this analysis

Below are the interconference records between the leagues (Updated for all games).

	ACC​	Big East​	Big 10​	Big 12​	SEC​
ACC		5-4​	3-10​	15-11​	16-13​
Big East	4-5​		10-7​	7-7​	7-3​
Big 10	10-3​	7-10​		8-8​	6-10​
Big 12	11-15​	7-7​	8-8​		6-15​
SEC	13-16​	3-7​	10-6​	15-6​
Total	38-39​	22-28​	31-31​	45-32​	35-41​
Average Games vs. Majors	4.28​	4.55​	3.44​	4.81​	4.75​

I put this together using ChatGPT, which wasn't great at this kind of search, so I had to do a lot of manual adjustments and I may have missed a couple of games.

That data supports the Big East being ranked #5 out of the majors, but it doesn't really support the huge gap we are seeing between the leagues in KenPom and Torvik. I think the margin of victories and buy games early in the season are making a difference, along with the fact that KenPom has a big preseason projection in that model which remains a factor into January. The SEC's current +19 would be one of the strongest all time conference ratings on KenPom, which is odd for a conference that has a losing record against the other majors, and a large and growing collection of ugly losses. It is also strange that the Big 12 is not the #1 league in every ranking.

I would expect to see the Big East creep up in the computer ratings, cutting the gap between them and the higher ranked conferences, as their solid number of P5 games per team and games against mid-majors start to flow through strength of schedule of opponents, while a lot of the low-major blowouts by SEC, Big 10 and Big 12 schools will lose value as the season wears on. This should help UConn on the margin, as its conference strength of schedule improves over the course of the season. The underlying rating in all the computer models gets pretty tight once you get past the top 15 or so teams, so even a minor improvement in the second degree SOS can make a big difference in the ranking. I don't think we are going to bump a bunch of games into Quad 1's, but we should see more Quad 2's than it appears we have today, and I think 5 bids is a reasonable projection unless Butler face plants.

Very nice analysis. I'll think about this every time I watch the talking heads on tv and podcasts. They certainly have the staff to do this kind of research but I guess it just doesn't fit the narrative (propaganda). Good to use by coaches to show the bias and how not to buy into a lot of empty bloviating by talking heads. I'll start by taking our staff over all others. Player potential (talent and depth) is in the same neighborhood especially when superior coaching is added. Now we just have to stay reasonably healthy and fine tune while character is being built in the BE rock fights through Jan-Feb. Nothing can stop us but ourselves. I can hear that locomotive engine and whistle in the distant background.

 

[dennismenace]

In the end it comes down to rings and banners. That is called consistent results. 21st century belongs to who?

 

[pepband99]

Are you arguing that the ratings in KenPom are based on a team's performance against KenPom's ratings? That makes the model even more useless than I thought. Actually, that is not what the model is doing, but I wanted to mock your explanation.

All the efficiency models reward teams for running up the score. They don't care if a basket is scored with 5 seconds left in a 50 point win or is the first basket of the game in a 50 point win. As a result, teams that want to improve their NET need to pour it on. The SEC and Big 12 have proved this for the last couple of years.

KenPom does not throw out half the conference for his conference ratings.

Finally, if you like the model, no one is stopping you from using it however you want. I am simply saying efficiency models, as currently constructed, should not be used for selection or seeding of the NCAA Tournament field.

Mock this. Everything you posted is wrong. Stay with your precious RPI, which had only one goal (ironically not rewarding weak schedules, and thus, blowouts), and didn't end up doing it very well.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

	ACC​	Big East​	Big 10​	Big 12​	SEC​
ACC		5-4​	3-10​	15-11​	16-13​
Big East	4-5​		10-7​	7-7​	7-3​
Big 10	10-3​	7-10​		8-9​	6-10​
Big 12	11-15​	7-7​	9-8​		6-15​
SEC	13-16​	3-7​	10-6​	15-6​
Total	38-39​	22-28​	32-31​	45-33​	35-41​
Avg. Games vs P5	4.28​	4.55​	3.50​	4.88​	4.75​

There was a Big 10 vs. Big 12 game on 12/29. This should be final. As before, the totals summarize down.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

As the efficiency ratings and RPI have become more seasoned with additional games, the results are fairly consistent across NET, Torvik, KenPom and RPI. The Big 10 and Big 12 are essentially tied, followed by a gap then the ACC, followed by a smaller gap, then the Big East, followed by a huge gap then the MWC, WCC, A10 and everyone else, with the mid majors clumped pretty close. The efficiency ratings and RPI do not meaningfully disagree on the vast majority of leagues.

Then there is the SEC. The efficiency ratings, and particularly KenPom, believe this year’s SEC is one of the strongest leagues in college basketball history, but the RPI has it at #5 this season. As I show in the post above this, the SEC has a losing record against the other majors, and a quick skim of its teams’ schedules shows a lot of cupcakes. #5 or or maybe #4 league seems about right, but the efficiency ratings love it.

So as I asked above, why is the SEC #1 by a large margin when its actual wins and SOS would indicate a more modest conference ranking?

 

[John]

As the efficiency ratings and RPI have become more seasoned with additional games, the results are fairly consistent across NET, Torvik, KenPom and RPI. The Big 10 and Big 12 are essentially tied, followed by a gap then the ACC, followed by a smaller gap, then the Big East, followed by a huge gap then the MWC, WCC, A10 and everyone else, with the mid majors clumped pretty close. The efficiency ratings and RPI do not meaningfully disagree on the vast majority of leagues.

Then there is the SEC. The efficiency ratings, and particularly KenPom, believe this year’s SEC is one of the strongest leagues in college basketball history, but the RPI has it at #5 this season. As I show in the post above this, the SEC has a losing record against the other majors, and a quick skim of its teams’ schedules shows a lot of cupcakes. #5 or or maybe #4 league seems about right, but the efficiency ratings love it.

So as I asked above, why is the SEC #1 by a large margin when its actual wins and SOS would indicate a more modest conference ranking?

 

[auror]

As the efficiency ratings and RPI have become more seasoned with additional games, the results are fairly consistent across NET, Torvik, KenPom and RPI. The Big 10 and Big 12 are essentially tied, followed by a gap then the ACC, followed by a smaller gap, then the Big East, followed by a huge gap then the MWC, WCC, A10 and everyone else, with the mid majors clumped pretty close. The efficiency ratings and RPI do not meaningfully disagree on the vast majority of leagues.

Then there is the SEC. The efficiency ratings, and particularly KenPom, believe this year’s SEC is one of the strongest leagues in college basketball history, but the RPI has it at #5 this season. As I show in the post above this, the SEC has a losing record against the other majors, and a quick skim of its teams’ schedules shows a lot of cupcakes. #5 or or maybe #4 league seems about right, but the efficiency ratings love it.

So as I asked above, why is the SEC #1 by a large margin when its actual wins and SOS would indicate a more modest conference ranking?

This is what I said up-thread about the SEC:

There's likely some ratings inertia with the SEC from last year, but also the SEC has no team anywhere near as bad as Utah. The SEC currently has all 16 teams within the KenPom top 100 and 12 within the top 50 (Big 12 has 8).

It's 12 in the top 52 now, and most of the pre-season ratings have been phased out. 11 in the top 53 of the NET (Texas is a lot worse in NET). As discussed, KenPom rates conferences based on the expected strength of a team needed to go .500 in conference play based on a round robin schedule. The algorithm spits out around the 35th ranked team for the SEC, low 40s for Big 12/Big Ten, low 50s for ACC, and mid-50s for Big East.

Big 12 has 9 of their teams in the top 53. 7 of 16 schools outside of the top 65. SEC has 3 outside the top 65, and their worst school (South Carolina at 90) is 38 spots better than the Big 12's worst school (Utah at 128). If you did just a straight average (and not the win50 method), Big 12 is 47.6, SEC is 39.7.

SEC is #1 by a large margin in KenPom because the algorithm thinks they have a lot of really good teams and an extremely good depth through the conference.

Torvik has cumulative conference WAB as one of the measurements on his site, so we can see what a good resume metric has for the conferences (something better than RPI). In that, he has the Big 12 #1 at +1.0 WAB, and then the SEC and Big Ten tied at 0.5 WAB, ACC at basically net 0 and BE at -0.27, then a big gap to the rest of the conferences.

So to answer your question: Why does KenPom have SEC #1 when their record doesn't indicate they should be #1? Because KenPom isn't measuring their record quality, just projecting current/future strength. The Big 12 has the best resume and that lines up with your high major records.