Conference bragging rights
 

With no Big Ten teams making the Sweet 16 (where's Rut?:D ), and no Big East Teams making it to the Final Four, it is clear that the SEC with TWO teams in the Final Four holds the bragging rights for 2006.

The Pac-10 did better than expected with UCLA in the FF and narrow losses by Arizona and Washington.

Of course, George Mason out of the Colonial is the story of the tournament! :) :) :) :) (one smile for each tourney win so far)

I am right here where I have always been. Conference debates often are fun but at the end are shallow debates. If it was not for Duke and North Carolina the ACC would be thought of as a marginal conference most years. It is really about programs and their continuous dominance over a long period of time. Does anyone really think the SEC is a better conference because Florida is in the Final Four now? Does anyone think the Colonial Conference is now a power conference because George Mason has reached the pinnacle? It is not your conference that gets you there. It is your team and getting hot at the right time that does. George Mason got hot at the right time as well as Florida, UCLA and LSU. The one good thing about college basketball is you get to prove your worth on the court and not in the polls. If the polls really matter then why is the Big East watching the Final Four this year?

Peace

While getting on a roll, coming together as a team, getting hot, peaking at the right time, or whatever else one wants to call it is definitely of utmost importance during tourney time, I do believe that the conference affiliations matter.
Besides recruiting there are other reasons that this matters.

Style of play, tempo, physical post or guard play, use of the 3pt shot, etc. all have been major differences in the conferences in the past. The Big Sky and the ACC had the three point shot prior to the NCAA putting it in, the Big East gave 6 fouls for a couple of years, the PAC-10 is noted for high scoring finesse games, etc. (The last is one reason that I think UCLA did so well in the PAC-10 this year with Ben Howland bringing a physical, defensive style to a league that wasn't accustomed to it.) The last difference is the referees. Although today more refs are working for multiple conferences, how a game was called used to be quite different from one conference to another.

I enjoy watching the contrast as these different elements clash when the teams meet in the tournament.

However, I do agree with the direction that the selection committee has taken of looking at teams and not leagues when handing out bids.

Sometimes though certain conferences just seem to prepare their teams better for the NCAA games.

Not true. The ACC experimented with it for one year (1983). It was several years later before the NCAA implemented it across the board.

Exactly. The ACC used it in conference play in 1983, the year NC State won the title. The Big Sky used it for several seasons in the early eighties. The NCAA adopted it in the 1986-87 season in which Indiana won it all.

So what isn't true about my statement?

Boston College is MARGINAL?

MARGINAL? That could be said about every conference if you took out their big teams. What would happen if the SEC lost a couple of teams like KY or Fl or and LSU? Of course Ky has been down a couple of years but their dominance has been historical. I am not saying the SEC is the best because they have two teams there, it is the luck of the draw and LUCK.

I do agree, that it is the teams who are hot, but so was Syracuse, what happen to them. I do think that the power conferences are historically the best.

Remember when the Big East experimented with 6 fouls before being DQ'd? What a disaster that was. I think that only lasted one season, too.

What has Boston College done? They were marginal when they were in the Big East. They did not get all of a sudden special when they joined the ACC.

Peace

Just clarifying. Your statement sounded as if the ACC had the three point shot for years prior to the NCAA finally instituting. It was actually closer than the present line, arcing better than a foot inside the top of the key, and was only used during conference games. It really had very little to do with the NCAA later going to it four years later.

You're right. They are marginal.:rolleyes: