(02-21-2011 12:35 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Rath makes a good conceptual point: A regular season title has more legitimacy if all the teams that play each other play home-away, and every team plays every other team in the league. That way, when we look at team records, it's an apples-apples comparison.

Since the Big East regular season schedule has neither of those characteristics, the regular season title is thereby diminished ...

Good point, but on the flip side, the tournament is even more unbalanced. Teams path to the tournament championship are nowhere near even. You could have one high seed face the highest possible seed each round and another get lucky with a lot of upsets before them.

There's also the issue of motivation, which is the big one I've seen brought up on the Big Ten boards. The mid-level teams are fighting for NCAA tournament births and the top teams, while not wanting to lose, aren't exactly helping their tourney chances with 3 or 4 straight games either. Coaches in other conferences have stated winning the conference tournament wasn't really a priority. I think an ACC coach even said as much and that tournament crowns the official ACC champion.