Big Ten West Is The Better Division...
- Thread starter HawK + i
- Start date
Not sure about that logic, but I was hoping to find that west does have better conf record than east. However, both finished 14-14 against each other. Damn Boilermakers!
That's not even a good comparison because the match ups can be lopsided depending on who the cross overs are. We did not play the top 4 teams from the West and neither did Wisky.
Actually, it was 7-7. (Each division of 7 teams played 2 games for 14 total games)
Nebraska's upset of MSU was probably the biggest surprise; most of the rest of the matchups were upper-end of one division playing lower end of the opposite division.
Northwestern played the 'toughest' of the two, I think, with Michigan and Penn St, and went 1-1.
The BTT game will decide which of the divisions actually ends up w/ more wins vs. the other, but the perception that the East was far better than the West is not supported by the data - on paper, the East teams have some bigger historical names, but they did not play up to it on the field....
You can say the same for their top teams; only MSU played a bottom-half West team and lost.
Head-head is the fairest comparison of the divisions, and it's split dead even.
The SEC, on other hand, is WAY lopsided the other direction - the East teams won only a couple games total vs. their West division. Thus, a good bet FL will get shellacked in their title game (especially after being exposed badly by FSU)
No way in hell is the west as good as the east. That said we could be the best team period, we will have our chance
The East may have an edge over the West, but the 7-7 head to head record indicates the difference is much smaller than the biases (which are based on past performance, not 2015 performance) suggest.
You can throw that stat up all day but unless Iowa plays MSU, NW plays OSU & Wisky plays Michigan, Nebby plays PSU, on down the line... those results are the true indicator.
I think we are good and the West is better than expected but I think the East wins more than it loses in a true head-to-head.
Direct competition is the only unbiased metric we have to go on; some of the 'bottom feeders' of the West gave top teams in the East some very stiff competition - Purdue losing 24-21 to MSU, Minn losing 29-26 to Michigan (and if they had ANY semblance of clock management, would have won or tied that game).
I fully understand that the Michigans/OSUs/MichSts/PennSts have 'better recruiting classes', 'better historical performance', etc. etc.
But those are biases and perceptions, not relevant facts.
In 1984, a North Carolina men's BB team with four current or future NCAA Consensus All Americans played an Indiana team with only one 'name' player.
It was Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Michael Jordan and others vs. Steve Alford, Mike Giomi, Uwe Blab, Daniel Dakich and Stew Robinson.
NO WAY could that Indiana team of 'nobodies' even stay on the same floor as 4 current/future NCAA Consensus AA's, 2 of which were future NBA All Stars, and one which was a future NBA MVP and all-time great.
No.freaking.way.
72-68 says otherwise...
http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/boxscores/1984-03-22-indiana.html
