NET and what's killing the Big East

[DefenseBB]

Many of us hoped coming back to the Big East would improve our conference competition and with the handful of Rating websites devoted to such analysis, we have our data to assess. Yes, we know that this year the Big East seems deeper at the top with UConn, DePaul, Creighton, Marquette, Villanova and a resurgent Seton Hall which is a fine top 6. The real problem is at the bottom of the conference. When assessing a conferences relative strength, you have to look at every team's NET rating. In doing so, P5 aside, the American (yes, our old residence) is beating the Big East for 3 very important reasons-Xavier, Georgetown and Butler! These three schools are abysmal when it comes to women's hoop. There are 348 teams listed for D1 this year and Xavier is #234 (#214 in 2021), Georgetown #259 (#208) and Butler is a putrid #322 (#269). By contrast, the AAC bottom 4 are Wichita State #123, Memphis #129, Cincinnati #187 and East Carolina #166. The 4th worst BE school is Providence at #150 (#174) and given their 2021 NET rating, it is not like they are getting better but actually WORSE-YIKES!

What I find especially frustrating are:
1. It is touted that the Big East is a basketball league, whose main sport focus is basketball
2. The league hired Val Ackerman as it's Commissioner, you know, the one who led the WNBA for 20 years and should be able to tangentially focus on the WCBB in this conference as well as the Men.
3. The 4 listed pathetic teams have a long and rich history of basketball in the Men's game yet no such success (or effort) has really occurred for their women's programs. Yes, maybe PC had some initial success when the BE was launched in the 80s (when Incarnate Word was also good ).

When will the league and Ms. Ackerman address the Pink elephant in the room and get more resources and focus at these schools to lift up the rest of the league. A chain is only as NET ratings.

So, while we can feel better that maybe the BE can get 3 teams in the field this year, we need to strengthen all 11 or at least make the bottom 4 not so terrible.

 

[cometjo]

In terms of getting the team ready for the tournament it seems more important that they have some really tough games. That’s happening in the Big East.

 

[visitingcock]

In terms of getting the team ready for the tournament it seems more important that they have some really tough games. That’s happening in the Big East.

It’s not going to happen in the remaking regular season. You have NO remaining games against Quad 1 opponents and two that are quad 3s. Your presently great SOS is going to dip to the mid 2Os in just two weeks. The BigE tournament games will help a bit.

Tough conference games are happening only because you are down due to injury. A 3/4 healthy UConn would have blown the conference apart.

 

[Boreifs]

Many of us hoped coming back to the Big East would improve our conference competition and with the handful of Rating websites devoted to such analysis, we have our data to assess. Yes, we know that this year the Big East seems deeper at the top with UConn, DePaul, Creighton, Marquette, Villanova and a resurgent Seton Hall which is a fine top 6. The real problem is at the bottom of the conference. When assessing a conferences relative strength, you have to look at every team's NET rating. In doing so, P5 aside, the American (yes, our old residence) is beating the Big East for 3 very important reasons-Xavier, Georgetown and Butler! These three schools are abysmal when it comes to women's hoop. There are 348 teams listed for D1 this year and Xavier is #234 (#214 in 2021), Georgetown #259 (#208) and Butler is a putrid #322 (#269). By contrast, the AAC bottom 4 are Wichita State #123, Memphis #129, Cincinnati #187 and East Carolina #166. The 4th worst BE school is Providence at #150 (#174) and given their 2021 NET rating, it is not like they are getting better but actually WORSE-YIKES!

What I find especially frustrating are:
1. It is touted that the Big East is a basketball league, whose main sport focus is basketball
2. The league hired Val Ackerman as it's Commissioner, you know, the one who led the WNBA for 20 years and should be able to tangentially focus on the WCBB in this conference as well as the Men.
3. The 4 listed pathetic teams have a long and rich history of basketball in the Men's game yet no such success (or effort) has really occurred for their women's programs. Yes, maybe PC had some initial success when the BE was launched in the 80s (when Incarnate Word was also good ).

When will the league and Ms. Ackerman address the Pink elephant in the room and get more resources and focus at these schools to lift up the rest of the league. A chain is only as NET ratings.

So, while we can feel better that maybe the BE can get 3 teams in the field this year, we need to strengthen all 11 or at least make the bottom 4 not so terrible.

How does the League get more resources to one of its members? I’m at a total loss. Please enlighten us.

 

[SVCBeercats]

Many of us hoped coming back to the Big East would improve our conference competition

When was UCONN ever in a competitive conference? One team, Notre Dame, is not a conference. For his career Geno is 547–61 (.900) in conference play. In the last 20-25 years would any conference have provided UCONN with real competition? No.

 

[JellyBean]

When was UCONN ever in a competitive conference? One team, Notre Dame, is not a conference. For his career Geno is 547–61 (.900) in conference play. In the last 20-25 years would any conference have provided UCONN with real competition? No.

End of discussion.

 

[sun]

Our OOC schedule is tough while other conferences have OOC schedules that are easy, perhaps easier than playing the teams at the bottom of the BE.

Georgetown only lost to Temple by 2 points which is tied for 3rd place in the American Athletic Conference, and is only one game behind South Florida.
A good thing about WBB is that it doesn't require a lot of players to improve a team.
The bottom schools have a transfer portal to work with just like when Mir transferred to Virginia.
And those schools also benefit by receiving money from the BE with help from UConn.
Short of bringing some new teams into the BE, helping out the bottom of the BE is not UConn's problem.
Every conference has weak teams.
Most of the BE schools are relatively small, and that's not going to change.

 

[HuskylnSC]

I feel your argument is flawed. In a normal year NET would not be a problem. UConn has typically been an RPI and NET leader and the Conference has always had bottom dwellers. We would be again this year except we did not win the games that would have elevated us; SCAR, Louisville, Oregon, Georgia Tech. Also we will probably not make up two games against the best of the BE; Marquette and DePaul.

We could have had a very good NET this year but blew it.

Also you are confusing Val Ackerman's job with those of the individual AD's.

 

[Stymie]

Maybe a little patience?
BE men’s side rebounding in quality.
Currently 5 teams in Top Twenty Five.
Not sure too many options other than to stick it out, right?

 

[UConnCat]

When was UCONN ever in a competitive conference? One team, Notre Dame, is not a conference. For his career Geno is 547–61 (.900) in conference play. In the last 20-25 years would any conference have provided UCONN with real competition? No.

And you would be very wrong.

In the 2008-2009, 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons combined, the Big East sent more teams to the NCAA tournament than any conference in the country. More than the SEC, more than the Big 12, more than the ACC and more than the PAC12. The old Big East was for some years the strongest conference in WCBB. The fact that UConn had long winning streaks during this years was remarkable.

 

[donalddoowop]

I feel your argument is flawed. In a normal year NET would not be a problem. UConn has typically been an RPI and NET leader and the Conference has always had bottom dwellers. We would be again this year except we did not win the games that would have elevated us; SCAR, Louisville, Oregon, Georgia Tech. Also we will probably not make up two games against the best of the BE; Marquette and DePaul.

We could have had a very good NET this year but blew it.

Also you are confusing Val Ackerman's job with those of the individual AD's.

UConn played DePaul twice. There was no need for a make-up game with them.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

as promised in early season, wbb is mostly el-stinko this season. as such, with hoped for marginal improvement by a few teams in our meh league, they could jump up a bit in the ratings. some of our leaguemates are actually looking both entertaining and competitive this season.
we've never been in anything other than a league of one, regardless of our mailing address. if we get eight or so ballers mostly healthy by season's end, it's all over but the crying. hey paige! get busy with the jumproping and side to side cone drills!

 

[LoboDays]

Our OOC schedule is tough while other conferences have OOC schedules that are easy, perhaps easier than playing the teams at the bottom of the BE

That is a factually incorrect statement. The stronger teams schedule other strong OOC games just like UCONN tries to do. SC’s OOC schedule was the strongest I’ve seen.

I have been down on the BE since UCONN returned to it. (The Women’s side). But, I have to say…. The top 3 teams below UCONN are not bad teams. Yesterday, we saw a Marquette team that was extremely well coached and executed their offense with great efficiency. I hope a couple of them make the Tourney.

 

[visitingcock]

That is a factually incorrect statement. The stronger teams schedule other strong OOC games just like UCONN tries to do. SC’s OOC schedule was the strongest I’ve seen.

I have been down on the BE since UCONN returned to it. (The Women’s side). But, I have to say…. The top 3 teams below UCONN are not bad teams. Yesterday, we saw a Marquette team that was extremely well coached and executed their offense with great efficiency. I hope a couple of them make the Tourney.

Stanford's was excellent too. NC State and UConn were excellent.

Here's Massey: As you can see UCOnn's SOS looks VERY good right now but will plummet by the end of the regular season:

Team	Record	Δ	Rat	Pwr	Off	Def	HFA	SoS	SSF	EW	EL
Correlation	768		1000	997	889	835	353	780	798	367	-524
South Carolina Southeastern	23-1 0.958		1 9.69	1 73.90	14 97.41	1 40.54	2.89	2 55.58	2 55.68	3.62	0.38
Stanford Pac 12	21-3 0.875		2 9.31	2 72.85	6 102.85	5 34.04	2.76	1 55.67	1 55.76	3.40	0.60
NC State Atlantic Coast	23-3 0.885		3 9.09	3 70.23	8 101.18	9 33.10	2.87	4 54.02	5 53.90	2.56	0.44
Connecticut Big East	17-5 0.773	+1	5 8.59	5 66.75	15 97.18	8 33.61	2.84	3 54.09	25 51.69	3.90	0.10

 

[Zinethar]

When you are a team that is consistently one of the top teams in the country and that has been to 13 consecutive final 4s it will not matter what conference you are in. You will dominate it and lose rarely in conference games. That is what top teams do. That will also leave the other teams in the conference with more losses that they would not have if you were not there hurting their seedings. If you put the current best teams in the same conference they would all likely wind up with more losses and people would wonder why they have "slipped". As currently configured it would be extremely rare for any conference to have more than 4 or 5 top teams.

 

[sun]

That is a factually incorrect statement. The stronger teams schedule other strong OOC games just like UCONN tries to do. SC’s OOC schedule was the strongest I’ve seen.

It's not totally false that some teams from stronger conferences schedule OOC games against weak teams to offset their tough conference schedule.
ACC Syracuse played 2 ranked OOC teams this year. (Syracuse was also at the Battle 4 Atlantis)

Monmouth
Morgan State
#23 South Florida
Minnesota
Buffalo
Colgate
#18 Ohio State
Central CT State
Cornell
UMBC
Siena

SEC Vanderbilt played 1 ranked OOC team this year.

Gardner-Webb
Little Rock
Middle Tennessee State
Tennessee Tech
Jacksonville State
#9 Arizona
Rutgers
DePaul
Chattanooga
Kansas
Albany
Presbyterian
St. Joseph's
Alabama State

 

[oldhusky]

I have no idea why the Big East has dropped off relative to the American, but at the time of the transition the Big East was slightly better largely because of teams in the middle and toward the bottom. The main change of course was just Uconn coming over. After that I thought the Big East would get better and the American worse, but so far it looks like just the opposite has happened.

Maybe recruits don't want to go to a conference where they feel they are forever fighting for second place? Or players going to a conference Uconn has left can now say we can win this thing. I don't know but the impact I expected has been the opposite so far, but it is still a little early to make major conclusions.

 

[LoboDays]

It's not totally false that some teams from stronger conferences schedule OOC games against weak teams to offset their tough conference schedule.
ACC Syracuse played 2 ranked OOC teams this year. (Syracuse was also at the Battle 4 Atlantis)

Monmouth
Morgan State
#23 South Florida
Minnesota
Buffalo
Colgate
#18 Ohio State
Central CT State
Cornell
UMBC
Siena

SEC Vanderbilt played 1 ranked OOC team this year.

Gardner-Webb
Little Rock
Middle Tennessee State
Tennessee Tech
Jacksonville State
#9 Arizona
Rutgers
DePaul
Chattanooga
Kansas
Albany
Presbyterian
St. Joseph's
Alabama State

If your point is that weak teams schedule weak OOC teams, what have you proved? I wouldn’t expect Butler to schedule SC or Stanford. Seems both obvious and moot.

 

[VaConnFan11]

Maybe it's a math thing making the AAC "better". 2 losses to UConn may hurt your power ranking more than having UConn on the schedule improves your SOS. If you replace those 2 losses with 2 wins against even mediocre teams, you are bound to be better off numerically.

Before someone chirps in, I know UConn didn't play everyone twice, but you get the idea.

 

[Geew1992]

I feel your argument is flawed. In a normal year NET would not be a problem. UConn has typically been an RPI and NET leader and the Conference has always had bottom dwellers. We would be again this year except we did not win the games that would have elevated us; SCAR, Louisville, Oregon, Georgia Tech. Also we will probably not make up two games against the best of the BE; Marquette and DePaul.

We could have had a very good NET this year but blew it.

Also you are confusing Val Ackerman's job with those of the individual AD's.

The Marquette game is being made up next week

 

[Boreifs]

I have no idea why the Big East has dropped off relative to the American, but at the time of the transition the Big East was slightly better largely because of teams in the middle and toward the bottom. The main change of course was just Uconn coming over. After that I thought the Big East would get better and the American worse, but so far it looks like just the opposite has happened.

Maybe recruits don't want to go to a conference where they feel they are forever fighting for second place? Or players going to a conference Uconn has left can now say we can win this thing. I don't know but the impact I expected has been the opposite so far, but it is still a little early to make major conclusions.

Why should one care about the bottom. UConn has four opponents in the Big East who could make the tournament, equaling 10 competitive games. That never happened in the AAC, where for most of the run South Florida was the only competition. The AAC is also losing several of its teams to the Big 12, which will make it a much weaker conference. Also, Seton Hall, Providence and St. John’s all have individual players that are difficult match ups. This thread is nonsense.

 

[sun]

If your point is that weak teams schedule weak OOC teams, what have you proved? I wouldn’t expect Butler to schedule SC or Stanford. Seems both obvious and moot.

Maybe you just didn't like that there was some truth to my original statement, so I defended it with proof.

 

[ME Husky Fan]

When was UCONN ever in a competitive conference? One team, Notre Dame, is not a conference. For his career Geno is 547–61 (.900) in conference play. In the last 20-25 years would any conference have provided UCONN with real competition? No.

1983