NCAA D1 Conference Comparison – Week 13

The NCAA regular season is now officially complete, and the dust has settled. Everyone has made their case to be included in the tournament, or left out. Now in terms of conferences, the ACC was the big winner by sending four teams to the postseason. But here’s how everything else broke down by conference:

• ACC: 4 (Duke, ND, UVA, & Cuse)
• Big East: 3 (Denver, Nova, & Georgetown)
• Big Ten: 2 (Maryland & Hopkins)
• Ivy: 2 (Yale & Cornell)
• Patriot: 1 (Loyola)
• SoCon: 1 (Richmond)
• MAAC: 1 (Canisius)
  Northeast: 1 (Robert Morris)
• America East: 1 (Albany)
• CAA: 1 (UMass)

The Big East sending 3 was 100% due to the Georgetown AQ. That should have been 2, and many are arguing 1. Had they sent 1, you would have 1 more Patriot team (Bucknell) and one more Big Ten team (Rutgers). But Rutgers finds themselves in the same spot they have been every year since 2004: on the outside looking in.

But this isn’t meant to be a bracket analysis article, we’re here to compare conferences! Let’s take a look!

The ACC pulled it off! It took them all the way down to the very last game between Duke and BU on the last day of the regular season, but they finished on top of the hill. The Big Ten really owned that spot for most of the year. It’s also not nearly enough to make you think the ACC is dominant by any means. What’s most interesting is when you compare this to last year. The Big Ten was truly dominant all season long. They lost only 8 games and finished with a winning percentage of .849. The ACC was almost identical to this year, going 36-14.

But since the ACC and Big Ten debate will never go away, we can take a look at how they fared head to head. It’s simpler to go with the ACC because of the fewer teams, so:

• Syracuse: 0-2 (Hopkins {7-18} and Rutgers {10-14})
• Duke: 0-0
• Notre Dame: 1-2 (Win vs. Ohio State {9-8}, Losses to Maryland {10-12} and Michigan {12-13})
• Virginia: 0-1 (Hopkins {13-15})
• North Carolina: 1-1 (Win vs. Hopkins {13-11}, Loss to Maryland {7-11})

So the Big Ten wins the head to head with a 6-2 record vs. the ACC. What’s sad is that these conference really don’t play each other outside of Hopkins and Maryland. It’s even worse that Duke did not play a single Big Ten team while Penn State did the same thing against the ACC. Leaving just single game against Rutgers and a single game against Michigan is hardly the head to head slug fest we want to see. Because, in order to best assess which conference is better, you need to compare them top to bottom.

UNC vs. Michigan, Duke vs. Maryland, Penn State vs. Virginia.

But until we can sit back and piece together our dream schedule, we are left with a regular old tournament to help figure out who is best. So… let’s see what they got!