bill dazzle
Craft beer and urban living enthusiast
Posts: 10,737
Joined: Aug 2016
Reputation: 983
I Root For: Vandy/Memphis/DePaul/UNC
Location: Nashville
|
RE: Mid Major Pecking Order
(07-04-2020 03:48 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote: (07-03-2020 06:15 PM)bill dazzle Wrote: If by "mid-major," posters on this board (not you) mean the Memphis and Cincinnati men's hoops programs are on the same level as mid-major programs Belmont and Tennessee State (all four of which, as you likely know by now, I root for) ... then, yes, I am insulted.
I am on full record on this board as noting I do NOT feel the American is a power men's hoops league or ever (realistically) will be. I take a fair and reasonable view of this.
As you correctly note, the AAC needs to recruit better talent and perform better in the NCAA Tournament. Agree fully.
As to the challenge the American has with the SEC in men's basketball ... true, it's a modest arrangement (only four games) but it at least suggests the SEC knows the American is a solid league. So it would not be "beneath" the Pac-12 to have a similar arrangement with the AAC (though I admit it would make zero sense in terms of geography and historical rivalries).
I also feel Pac-12 football and hoops sometimes are unfairly criticized on this board. I wish your league well.
Good post. As you probably know, a mid-major conference is a term primarily used by sportswriters and commentators. There is no clearly defined definition for mid-major conferences in basketball. At the D1 football level, they are separated (P5 conferences, G5 conferences, FCS Conferences). In basketball, they are just 32 D1 conferences. Wikipedia defines mid-major as "a term used in American NCAA Division I college sports, especially men's basketball, to refer to athletic conferences that are not among the so-called "Power Five conferences" (the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC)." But that is just their opinion and as we have seen on this board, very open to debate.
The Big East has established themselves as a 6th power conference for basketball. The AAC has been an official conference for seven seasons. By conference RPI ranking, they have never ranked higher than 6th and that was in 2018-2019, when the Pac-12 slipped to 7th. Every other season they have either been 7th or 8th in RPI conference ranking. The AAC has been a multi-bid conference (2 to 4 teams) every season. But then so has the Atlantic 10, which has had at least three bids every season from 2008 through 2018, until 2019 when they fell to two. Dayton would have been a No.1 seed this season. There is not much separation between the A-10 and the AAC in basketball. The A-10 is considered a mid-major.
But you are right, within a conference, there are power school programs and mid-major programs. Cincinnati probably qualifies as a power program in basketball. As for the challenge series, the Pac-12 played 15 games in non-conference against the MWC this past season. They went 13-2. A challenge series with the Big 12 just makes more sense for them. The A-10 and the MWC have agreed to a challenge series that starts in 2020.
The Pac-12 deserves a lot of the criticism they get, from the incompetence of the way their league is run to the poor leadership at the University level. The criticism is much louder on the west coast. But there has never been a lack of talent and I hope Mick Cronin, who you are familiar with, can turn it around at UCLA. The first season under Cronin turned out well.
You make lots of good points in this post. There is no "simple" way of looking at this. We all have different perspectives and we should, at least, try to be respectful of others' approaches to the subject. It seems most of the posters on this board are, which is a positive.
My background (having worked in the sports media and living in the "mid-half of the eastern half of the country" is such that I strongly recall the days when various programs of what I consider "major note" were not considered by some folks "of the highest level." These programs included, but were not limited to, Dayton, Memphis, Cincinnati, Louisville, DePaul, Butler, Marquette, Xavier and Saint Louis. I've always considered these programs to be "major" to "high-major." But living in Nashville with lots of SEC homers, I used to hear (and still do a little bit) disrespect toward those programs. As such, I can be a bit sensitive to this topic.
Cronin is a better coach than many Cincinnati fans will admit today. Whether he is the "right coach" for UCLA today ... hard to say. I wish him well. As a fan of the late Gene Bartow (and of Steve Alford from his IU playing days), ... I wish UCLA well.
(This post was last modified: 07-05-2020 08:12 AM by bill dazzle.)
|
|