I am in the mood for college basketball and I got to thinking today, is the Mid-American conference less of a conference for basketball than the Horizon or Summit Leagues?

Both share the same geograpical footprint and compete for the same recruits. Usually, the conferences that are division one bowl subdivision for football rate higher than those that are just division one essentially for sports other than football.

I would say that the Summit (which includes NDSU, SDSU, Oral Roberts, IPFW, South Dakota, Denver, IUPUI, Omaha, and Western Illinois) is certainly less than the MAC, but the Horizon with (Valpo, Green Bay, Cleveland State, Oakland, Milwaukee, Detroit, UIC, Wright State and Youngstown) would seem more prestigious than MACtion hoops.

Outside of a run from Kent State it appears that the Horizon (who had Butler in their league when they made their final four runs) has had better successes in March which speak towards the Horizon being more prestigious.

Conference RPI from 2010-11 to 2014-15:

MAC: 20, 17, 18, 12, 10

HL: 11, 14, 12, 14, 16

SL: 21, 16, 19, 17, 21

MAC has been trending up and surpassed the Horizon. Summit is worse than both. The gap will grow, with Cost of Attendance being introduced.

Losing Butler was a body blow. And Ohio's Sweet 16 run 3 seasons ago should be noted as well. Granted, other from KSU to OU, no one else has managed more than one win in the tourney in the last 15 years.

But subtract Butler from the Horizon and what do the remaining members have but decline?

(10-25-2015 05:09 PM)uakronkid Wrote:  Conference RPI from 2010-11 to 2014-15:

MAC: 20, 17, 18, 12, 10

HL: 11, 14, 12, 14, 16

SL: 21, 16, 19, 17, 21

MAC has been trending up and surpassed the Horizon. Summit is worse than both. The gap will grow, with Cost of Attendance being introduced.

Those were some of the not as good years for the MAC as well. I am not sure how the Horizon did as a whole but if we compared over a long time such the 90s-2000s it might be interesting.

My hunch is that on the whole long term that they are fairly comparable but now with Butler gone I think they are behind the MAC outside of random rebuilding years. There were some years in the earlier 2000s that I swear we got robbed.

The Horizon tended to have one or two really good teams that carried the conference, and a bunch of really terrible ones. The MAC had a stronger core, but the top teams weren't as high and the bottom teams were equally bad.

Historically, at least during that time period, NIU was terrible and helped bring down the conference average. They aren't great now but are trending upward and will be one less MAC deadweight.

There are a number of ways to compare conferences, one would be the quality of their game telecasts. Currently the Horizon League is crushing the MAC, thankfully the MAC is working on catching up. Slowly.

Another way to compare is to look at success in the Tournament. Here is a list of every current MAC and HL team that has won a game in the NCAA Tournament-


2012: Ohio(2-1)
2010: Ohio(1-1)

2009: Cleveland State(1-1)
2006: Milwaukee(1-1)
2005: Milwaukee(2-1), Oakland(1-1)
2003: Central MichiganM(1-1)
2002: Kent State(3-1)
2001: Kent State(1-1)

1999: Miami(2-1)Detroit(1-1)
1998: Western Michigan(1-1), Detroit(1-1), Valparaiso(1-1)
1996: Eastern Michigan(1-1)
1995: Miami(1-1)
1994: Green Bay(1-1)
1991: Eastern Michigan(2-1)
1990: Ball State(2-1)

1989: Ball State(1-1)
1986: Cleveland State(2-1)
1983: Ohio(1-1)

1979: Toledo(1-1)
1978: Miami(1-1)
1977: Detroit(1-1)
1976: Western Michigan(1-1)
1975: Central Michigan(2-1)

1969: Miami(1-1)
1964: Ohio(2-1)
1963: Bowling Green(1-2)
1960: Ohio(1-2)

1958: Miami(1-2)

So, IOW, on Tourney wins, if we cherry pick for the starting point, we can find a "recent past" that makes the Horizon League look better .... "over the past dozen years, 2004-2015" ... but if we pick arbitrary starting points, most of the time it favors the MAC, "in the current decade", "since the turn of the century", "since 1990", etc.

If you want to compare them, look at where their conference champs were seeded in the tournament

2004 Horizon: Illinois-Chicago, M13....MAC: Western Michigan, W11
2005 Horizon: Milwaukee, M12....MAC: Ohio, E13
2006 Horizon: Milwaukee, M11....MAC: Kent State, W12
2007 Horizon: Wright State, W14....MAC: Miami (OH), M14
2008 Horizon: Butler, E7...Summit: Oral Roberts, S13....MAC: Kent State, M9
2009 Horizon: Cleveland State, M13...Summit: North Dakota State, M14....MAC: Akron, S13
2010 Horizon: Butler, W5...Summit: Oakland, W14....MAC: Ohio, M14
2011 Horizon: Butler, SE8...Summit: Oakland, W13....MAC: Akron, SW15
2012 Horizon: Detroit, M15...Summit: South Dakota State, S14....MAC: Ohio, M13
2013 Horizon: Valparaiso, M14...Summit: South Dakota State, S13....MAC: Akron, S12
2014 Horizon: Milwaukee, E15...Summit: North Dakota State, W12....MAC: Western Michigan, S14
2015 Horizon: Valparaiso,M13....Summit: North Dakota State, S15....MAC: Buffalo, M12

So for tournament seeding, over the last 8 years, The Horizon was best 3 years, the MAC was the best seed 3 years, Summit was best just once. The other year, the Horizon and MAC had the same seed. But - the Horizon's 3 years with the best seed were all Butler, and Butler's gone

2 posts ago...

Valpo won two games in 1998. I only nitpick that because it was among the more famous runs in NCAA Tournament history.