🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Some have made the claim that the Big 12 conference is inferior to the other power conferences. Basing the theory on the fact the other conferences put more teams in the final 4 and winning the championships.

Well I'm not sure I believe. Just in the last two years KU has come to the end of conference play beat up and beaten down. Plagued with injures and just worn down. Think about it? If KU Played the great wonderful and powerful SEC they could have 12 wins of just showing up. No not in the Big 12. Every game seems like a dog fight, no matter what team you root for.

Why does a team that is good have to show it every night? If you're good, you're good. You don't need to prove it every night.

Yea tell me again how the Big 12 sucks.

PS I bet my house that this years UK team would have at least two losses if they played in the Big 12

@DoubleDD "PS I bet my house that this years UK team would have at least two losses if they played in the Big 12 "

What kind of house do you have ??

Lol - I get where you're coming from, but if KU is the uncontested champion of the Big 12 ( Eleven years running ) and Kentucky beat the living pizz out of us this year - why would they have two losses in this league? Just asking. Thanks.

This year's Kentucky team is a freak occurrence. Odds are they will end the season undefeated, first time that's happened in nearly 40 years. I don't think you can compare them to anybody. They made us look like scared little girls. We're not the same team now, and we'd probably do better than last time we played them, but the odds would still be strongly in their favor.

I agree with the premise that Big 12 teams beat each other up during the season, which could be detrimental in the post season. But the post script suggestion may be a bit of a stretch, in my opinion.

I don't know about two losses, but they would have one for sure. It would be a forfeit against KU, because they refuse to come to Lawrence.

Maybe we should look at the Big 12/SEC Challenge results.

2013: Big 12 won 7-3

2014: Big 12 won 6-4

Pretty good for an inferior conference.

The main black mark on the Big 12 is its NCAA tournament failures. But we just can't ignore that. There just has been consistent underachievement in the NCAA tourney. I may be wrong here, but the only Big 12 team to make the final four since 2003 has been Kansas. Cue the self-serving "NCAA tourney is all luck" discussion.

In assessing the Big 12, it really doesn't help that we don't have a definitive 2nd top tier team. Louisville being added would have changed that discussion. And I know it's fashionable for us to defend the 11 straight titles. But if Louisville had been in the Big 12 during that stretch, does anyone think it likely that we have the same streak? That's really all it is. That the nature of your path/competition can provide an assist.

And that connects back to the NCAA tourney. Part of that discussion is that your path/competition can provide some "luck" -- if better seeds get beat in front of you. That is without a doubt true. But with regard to the Big 12, since 2003, we've just had zero luck in the path? I think most factor in everything they know about the NCAA tourney dynamic. That is in part why the Big 12 get such little respect. In the last 11 NCAA tourney, the Big 12 has had just two final four teams (both Kansas).

National respect comes from NCAA tourney achievement.

@DoubleDD All the power rankings have the B12 as the top conference this year, but that needs to be qualified a bit. It's a product of the fact that we had the best non-conference record against mostly non-patsy competition, which boosted power rankings early and everyone got the benefit or playing against each other, all with strong power rankings. However, the league really didn't get any top tier wins in non-conference - mostly it got a bunch of solid wins and managed to avoid bad losses. Other conferences, such as the ACC, while having several inferior teams, also have more ranked highly than does the B12.

And, you are spot on that the conference has underachieved in the tournament. 1 NCAA title in almost 30 years. You noted the two KU FFs in the last 11 years - Texas made it in '03 and OSU in '04, but that is it this century. That is well behind the other power conferences. Unless and until others step up in addition to KU, we won't get the respect we strive for.

The NCAA Tournament is not a tournament of the best teams in its current format. The tournament would be better served if it were a 32 team tournament, without play in games. Teams that have losing records are allowed into the tournament. They do not belong. It waters down the tournament. Would this ever happen in NCAA Football? Hell no. I am proud of Kansas and the 11 consecutive Big XII Titles. I am proud of the 5 Elite 8 appearances posted by Coach Bill Self. The Big XII has posted quite a few Elite 8 appearances over the past 10 years. Off the top of my head, Baylor, K-State, and Iowa State have all made it that far in recent years. Over 300 teams compete each year for the right to win it all. No one is going to win it every year. Anyone thinking that, is in for a lot of heartache.

@HighEliteMajor

"Cue the self-serving "NCAA tourney is all luck" discussion."

In any one given year, the "luck card" can be played and supported. But over a long period of time, the luck factor vanishes in the numbers and trends.

You hit on it... the B12 needs another contender besides Kansas.

But I do think we are moving in the right direction. I point to ISU, OU and even WVU. Texas has been a gigantic disappointment, especially knowing how much money they dump into their athletic program, the Longhorn Network, being situated in the best state for recruiting.

Even though we know Scott Drew isn't a good game coach, the guy does bring in top talent to a non-basketball school. Hence... he has been a net plus for our league (unless he gets nailed for recruiting violations).

Truth is, Texas is still a football school. They don't really have a basketball standards bar set high enough. I think most people down there think Barnes is successful. Anyways.... it is just something to do until football season comes around, and another year of Texas football also underachieving.

Our conference basketball championship might go through Lawrence... but the success of our conference (as a whole) goes through Austin.

@DCHawker

You could phrase that as two titles in less than 30 years. Go back another year before 03 and you can add Oklahoma to your final four list from the league.

@HighEliteMajor I think Oklahoma State made it one year after we did in 03. Was Texas' last appearance with us in 03?

The heyday, if you can call it that, of the Big12 was the first half of the last decade. Oklahoma, us, OSU, Texas all in the final four.

I'm not sure any major power out there is wishing/praying/hoping that they don't get a big 12 team in their bracket this year. Now I'm not saying we can't with a lot of teams, because I think the league will probably get two or three teams into the sweet 16 or elite 8. But beyond that it's going to be a more flukey thing in my opinion.

@HighEliteMajor You make a good point about the Final Fours. This year is a prime example. I believe that the statement that the Big 12 is the toughest conference has merit. Very deep with 8 good teams (yes, including KSU and UT). Capable of beating almost anyone. But..... are any of them a legitimate final four contender? I would say not....including us. Several are capable of making it.....but you wouldn't realistically pick one in your bracket. IMO

@Hawk8086 said:

you wouldn't realistically pick one in your bracket

Except for KU. Because I always pick KU :-P

Now watch what happens this year... In an unprecedented showing of power, three teams from the B12 end up in the Final Four. And the talking heads fall all over themselves saying they should have seen it coming because it was the strongest conference.. blah blah blah.

The problem with the argument that Final Fours and Championships prove conference superiority is that it really tells you nothing about the quality of teams in the conference other than the one or two that made it that far. Was the ACC really the best conference in 2010 because Duke won a championship after UNC won in 2009? Well, UNC lost to Dayton in the NIT finals and only Maryland and Georgia Tech made it in with Duke, both being eliminated in the second round. In the same year, 7 Big 12 teams made the dance, 2 advancing to the Elite 8 (while KU produced a massive choke job to UNI, ugh!), so who had the better tournament and which was the better conference? I don't think it's even logical, let alone fair, to judge the entire conference by the showing of its best team. UF and UK both made the Final Four last year, and Tennessee made an Elite 8 run, but again, the rest of the conference was terrible, and it seems an enormous stretch to me to say SEC > Big 12 because they had one good team and two that overachieved. Hell, the AAC is a joke of a conference outside of UConn, and I don't think anyone with sense would claim AAC > Big 12 in 2014 just because the Huskies cut down the nets, right? We can all see how silly that is, right?

@konkeyDong said:

The problem with the argument that Final Fours and Championships prove conference superiority is that it really tells you nothing about the quality of teams in the conference other than the one or two that made it that far. Was the ACC really the best conference in 2010 because Duke won a championship after UNC won in 2009? Well, UNC lost to Dayton in the NIT finals and only Maryland and Georgia Tech made it in with Duke, both being eliminated in the second round. In the same year, 7 Big 12 teams made the dance, 2 advancing to the Elite 8 (while KU produced a massive choke job to UNI, ugh!), so who had the better tournament and which was the better conference? I don't think it's even logical, let alone fair, to judge the entire conference by the showing of its best team. UF and UK both made the Final Four last year, and Tennessee made an Elite 8 run, but again, the rest of the conference was terrible, and it seems an enormous stretch to me to say SEC > Big 12 because they had one good team and two that overachieved. Hell, the AAC is a joke of a conference outside of UConn, and I don't think anyone with sense would claim AAC > Big 12 in 2014 just because the Huskies cut down the nets, right? We can all see how silly that is, right?

Well stated plus 100

@konkeyDong

I respectfully disagree. If a conference has good/great teams they're going to make it to deep into the dance and the facts as others have shown here don't support the fact that this conference has been very well represented on its' last weekend.

Another way to view it is KU has consistently a great team. Great teams make it to the FF, not every year of course, but do make it 4 times in this millenium like we have. If this league had other great teams, there'd be other big 12 teams with multiple final fours.

And the winner is by KO

@konkeyDong

Sound point and almost impossible to refute.

So Think about it? Does one team or two make a conference great? Couple years ago Wichita St went to the final 4, and last year they flirted with greatness. So is the Missouri Valley a strong conference?

I hear and read all the time how some of you say and want KU to have a Louisville type rivalry. That is would be good for KU and the conference as a whole. All I can say is open your eyes and see the bigger picture. The Big 12 conference is KU's rivalry. Every game is a dog fight. Notice KU doesn't blow teams out like they used to. Hell even Espn wants big Mondays and Game day in places like Iowa st and Kstate. When KU comes to town.

No the Big 12 doesn't have two blue bloods to stake it's claim, and the Big 12 hasn't shown their best in the tournament. However from top to bottom and a round robin schedule it's hard to be tougher than the Big 12. All you have to do is look at how bruised and battered the Champion is to see how brutal the Big 12 can be. Every week of conference play is like rivalry week for KU.

Speaking of big 12, the espn dimwit announcers for Indiana and ms game were discussing how in the world other big 12 schools could possibly let KU win all this time. Talking big money programs, facilities and great crowds (joke) couldn't stop us! Puke! No credit to our program!

@nuleafjhawk

My house is no mansion, but it is home.

You ask me why I think UK would lose at least two game in the Big 12 conference. Let me flip the table, and you tell me why you think UK would just run the table in the Big 12. Now remember this isn't about just beating KU. Really think about it.

Imagine UK having to play a home game against WV on a Saturday, then have to head to Iowa st for a tussle in Cyhawk land on a Monday night game. Also this a round robin conference, no ducking anyone. Every team has to play everybody twice. Home and away. I also think there are some teams in the Big 12 that good give UK just fits. OU and Iowa St. just to name a few.

@DoubleDD said:

No the Big 12 doesn't have two blue bloods to stake it's claim, and the Big 12 hasn't shown their best in the tournament. However from top to bottom and a round robin schedule it's hard to be tougher than the Big 12. All you have to do is look at how bruised and battered the Champion is to see how brutal the Big 12 can be. Every week of conference play is like rivalry week for KU.

Have to agree with this. This year, if you wanted to watch a good Big 12 game on a given day, all you had to do was tune in to ESPN.

@nuleafjhawk They beat us bad, I'll give you that BUT it was the 2nd game of the season AND Kentucky had like 3 more weeks than us to practice and work on plays and Calipari had that much more time to figure out how to cheat some more. Kentucky had a hard time against Georgia for crying out loud. Thats like a TCU level school right there. Do you really think that Kentucky would go undefeated in the Big 12, with a home and home against ALL of the teams?
No way. Nope. Not happening.

@konkeyDong I agree. But if a conference is really good year in and year out, wouldn't one of the teams make the final four more often than the Big 12 has?
Now, I still think that you can argue the Big 12 is still the best this year....even though we don't have any final four contenders (at this point) IMO

@wissoxfan83 Eehhh, I dont know if that is sound logic either Wissox. Basically you are saying that the SEC and the ACC are both better conferences than the big 12 based on, how many, 3 teams? UK,UF and Duke? Your not accounting for almost 3/4ths of the equation here. We are talking about the entire conference, top to bottom. Which is better, top to bottom.
No freeking way is the SEC a better conference than the Big 12. No way.
Is the ACC better? Maybe, but only by a little bit. I mean the RPI rankings showed recently that the difference between the Big 12, The Big 10 and the ACC were mere percentage points, 10ths of a percentage point. 0.10

The point I'm referring to is the accrual over a number seasons, and that is why folks can't accept now that the Big 12 is the top conference. We've been there, done that -- and we (conference) underachieve in the tourney.

I'm not saying it's fair, but the only way you shut the naysayers up is saying -- "yea, but we won 2 of the last five national championships." That ends it all.

@HighEliteMajor You make the key point - it's fairly consistent underachievement by the conference as a whole in the tournament. Last year was a particularly harsh example - B12 got the most bids - 7 - but only won 6 games total. In some years, there have been as many as 5 or 6 conferences with better results - in just one tournament. I believe the only year that the B12 had the most conference wins was when we won it in '08 - KU's 6 wins and 6 by other conference teams. Showed well early in the century - '03 and '04, as well, but we were still only 2d or 3rd best those years. You're right - we can say its a crapshoot, but other conferences have had better results at the craps table over time.

Hopefully this is a year that the entire league shows well - with a little of that luck, maybe we can get a couple of teams into the FF.

I find it comical that teams like Arkansas are ranked 18, while K-State, TCU, Okie State are all unranked. I really do think we will surprise teams come March. The Big 12 has a toughness about it this year.

Gosh.... I don't know.

I know we have a great conference. Extremely entertaining because we now have several teams competing at a high level.

Will we put a team in the FF this year? I don't know.

It seems like every B12 team right now is banged up. It's so bad that maybe the list would be shorter to just name who isn't banged up.

So do players get banged up more in the B12? I'd like Jesse to pull some numbers to look at injuries by conference. That could easily explain a poor March history from our league if it is true. And if it is true, WHY are we getting more banged up than other conferences?

Maybe it's the same all over... maybe it's not. @Jesse-Newell ... can you help us out on this one?

@HighEliteMajor

Perception is one thing and reality is everything. You see the Big 12 could win two out of the next 5 National Championships. It won't matter. You see the media giants in sports are on the East and West Coast. Hell they call the Big 12 fly over country. However here lately the Big 12 has become a gauntlet. It has almost become more about surviving than it is winning.

Yes the Big 12 has failed miserably when it comes to the tournament. However I would make the case that the other power conferences aren't exactly winning multiple championships with different teams. Really the only conference to win multiple championships with many different teams was the old Big East. Yet they had like 20 teams and their back yard is in hoop heaven.

@DoubleDD I live on the East Coast and have had to put up with a lot of ACC and (old) Big East chest-beating. However, I'm a KU and B8/B12 lifer. But, we simply haven't measured up in the tournament over the past decade. That isn't perception, but reality.

From '02-04, KU, OU, OSU and Texas all made the FF. Only KU since then.

Yes, other conferences are top-heavy, i.e., ACC and SEC, but they're top heavy with 2, not just one. And, others have had more depth success. Since '04, 5 different B10 teams have made the FF (although they haven't won). In addition, to Duke and UNC, GT made it (of course, MD won it all before that). In addition to UK and FL, LSU made it. Of course, the old Big East just dominated - both in terms of champs and FF participants.

B12 was the strongest it's ever been top to bottom this year - but, the onus is on all the league teams is to make a strong showing in the Big Dance this year.

@DCHawker

Not sure why you would put so much stock in a one and done tournament as gauge of a strong conference? But ok

That's your reality. I guess the Missouri Valley is a tough conference. As the Shockers have made a lot of noise in the tournament here lately.

You now for years the Big East was the power of all power conferences. Yet take away Ucon and really they are a failure when it came to tournament time. Am I wrong?

A lot of people consider the ACC the greatest yet for years is was Duke and NC. So because Duke and NC made it to the final four on yearly basis the ACC is this powerhouse?

Some will even say look at the SEC? OK outside of UK and the Gators what have they really done as conference?

I'll give you the Big 10, but even they have in many years put many teams in the tournament and walked away with nothing. However like I said I will give you the Big 10.

Yes I would agree the Big 12 hasn't done well in the tournament, However the crazy thing is if KU would have won more championships than it has, the argument wouldn't be about whether the Big 12 is any good.

That my friend is perception, and reality.

@DoubleDD Well, a couple of things. First, I never said that a "one and done" tournament is THE gauge of a strong conference, although I would posit that over time it is a pretty good one as it is the only relatively level (no home courts) playing field mechanism for brining the best teams of each conference together. What I said was that the reality was the B12 has underperformed other conferences, significantly so, in the past decade.

I'm not saying that ACC is a powerhouse - it has had a lot of bad teams at the bottom, esp. after it expanded. But, and I hate to have to say this because I don't like either of them, but UNC and Duke combined have many more FFs and championships during this period than Kansas. And, they've had 3 teams make the FF, compared to our 1.

Take away UConn and the Big East is a failure? Louisville was a Big East member. Syracuse, Georgetown and even WVU (as a Big East member) have also been in the FF in the last decade. Again, we've had no one other than KU.

Apart from championships and FFs, what about over all tournament success? Unfortunately, not any better by that metric. Last year we got 7 teams in and only 6 total wins. In two or three years, there were as many as 5 or 6 conferences that had more wins during a particular tournament than the B12. The only year in the past decade where the B12 had the best overall tournament record was, not surprisingly, '08. 12 total wins, 6 by the Hawks.

The only other way to compare the strength of conferences is during the non-conference portion of the schedule. This year we had the #1 conference RPI - most years we are behind the B10, Big East and ACC, but often ahead of the Pac 12 or SEC.

I'm very hopeful that this year we can translate regular season success - one measure of strength - into post-season success - another measure of strength. I repeat, however, that the objective reality is that hasn't been the case consistently or as compared to some of the other power conferences over the past decade. If one perceives differently, then I might respectfully suggest one needs new glasses.

This coming from someone who pulls hard for all the B12 teams in the tournament to do well, because it would further help cement KU's legacy.

@DCHawker

Tournament History ↗

Not sure how we can pick a top conference from history. It seems the Blue bloods do quite well.