Is Winning Conf Tournament Championship better than winning Reg Season Championship?

[Franisdaman]

lets face it; IU had the easiest B1G schedule and as a result they won the regular season B1G Title.

BUT, IU fizzled out in their first game in the BTT.

Meanwhile, MSU is cruising and looks like a championship (conference and national) team.

if MSU wins the BTT, who do you consider the B1G Champion?

Its just weird having a regular season champ and a tournament champ; who the hell is the true champ? IU? MSU?

 

[anon_snp6dc585nnj4]

I believe one banner says B1G Champs and the other says B1G tourney Champs...if so give me regular season title. More body of work then 3- 4 games

 

[jberesford]

lets face it; IU had the easiest B1G schedule and as a result they won the regular season B1G Title.

BUT, IU fizzled out in their first game in the BTT.

Meanwhile, MSU is cruising and looks like a championship (conference and national) team.

if MSU wins the BTT, who do you consider the B1G Champion?

Its just weird having a regular season champ and a tournament champ; who the hell is the true champ? IU? MSU?

I'll agree the conference title has become based largely on your schedule with so many teams and who you only play once and where, but there's still no comparison. The body of work during a 2 and a half month 18 game season blows away performance in a handful of games one weekend.

 

[uniFIGHTuniFIGHT]

Regular season >>>> conference tourney. That's why February was so disappointing. That's why ISU has major blue balls for KU.

 

[ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK]

Regular season >>>> conference tourney. That's why February was so disappointing. That's why ISU has major blue balls for KU.

This

 

[SDHawkDoc]

Agree. Regular season title more meaningful than BTT.

NCAA tourney performance more important than either.

 

[CAhawki]

Regular season champ by far.

 

[uniFIGHTuniFIGHT]

BTW, we could whine about the scheduling imbalance if IU had won and we struggled against the top-half of the conference. The reality is, we did the heavy-lifting up front with MSU and PU. We'll likely never see that kind of success ever again unless we actually have elite talent (not knocking what we have, but we're not recruiting like UK/KU/UNC). We lost twice to the champs. Once to Maryland. Horrible loss @ PSU. Frustrating loss at home vs Wisconsin (who didn't end up being bad). Frustrating road loss to the Buckeyes (who have talent and a good coach but not as much experience). We didn't lose this because of scheduling, we were UNC in January and Iowa in February.

 

[yerpHAWK]

Top 5 conferences Regular Season
The rest. Tournament.

 

[Franisdaman]

On the TV screen, it said "BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP"

One of the CBS color commentators said at the end of the game, "Tom Izzo, Big 10 champions again."

It just seems like the word "tournament" is being dropped and the BTT is crowning the Big 10 Champions, and that would be the Michigan State Spartans.

I am sure IU fans have something to say about this

 

[rufus-hawk]

No and it's not even close.

(Unless you're a coach needing to make fake championship pronouncements for the purpose of disguising the fact that your teams perennially underachieve.)

 

[Psyclone]

Regular season >>>> conference tourney. That's why February was so disappointing. That's why ISU has major blue balls for KU.

There is no question when the conference plays a full double round robin, the regular season championship is the most coveted. Midway through the season Kansas looked like they were on their way out, but they got their act together and ran away with it while the other contenders beat each other up.

 

[uniFIGHTuniFIGHT]

There is no question when the conference plays a full double round robin, the regular season championship is the most coveted. Midway through the season Kansas looked like they were on their way out, but they got their act together and ran away with it while the other contenders beat each other up.

There is no question regardless.Stop bragging about the set-up of your soon-to-fold conference. It wasn't always that way and it was better in the past. Ames is a truck stop.

 

[ICWestfan]

Neither championship matters.
Signed,
U of Virginia Cavaliers

 

[DavenportHawk8]

Just makes you wonder why teams like Monmouth, St Marys, and others even play the regular season. These teams play 30 some games then their fate is decided by one weekend of tournament play. Also look at MSU, Kentucky yesterday. They win their conference tournament and it does nothing for the seeding? Why even play the games, if its not going to impact your seeding.

Saturday night they were talking about how KU had already locked up a #1 seed regardless of the outcome. IF I was self, I would of benched my starters and played the reserves. Whats the point if you already have the #1 seed locked up, why play a game where one of your stars could get hurt and jeopardize your NCAA tournament run. Just does not make sense to me, but I am sure its all about $$.

 

[LuteHawk]

Former Indiana coach Bobby Knight despised the Big Ten
Conference Tournament. He was adamant that the regular
season conference title was more important.

The only reason we have conference tournaments is due to
the money they make. Take away the TV revenue and there
would be no conference tournaments.

The only downside for the Big Ten Conference season is having
14 teams and the impossibility of a double round robin schedule.
Indiana had a soft conference schedule and won the title, yet
Michigan State won the Big Ten tournament.

 

[MeetTheFerentz]

Conference tournaments exist for two reasons:
1) Official reason - Determine conference's automatic bid to NCAA Tourney, and
2) Unofficial/real reason - Money grab

Reg season title definitely more important, but I tend to agree that even though the team with the best record over 18 games should be considered the champ, with conferences of 14-16 teams, the unbalanced schedules make it an unfair fight from year to year, in which case the conference tourneys act as a de facto tie breaker among the best teams.

 

[El Simbolo]

MSU had a fairly easy conference slate too. Not IU easy, but softer than the four 3rd place teams. Regular season should count more, but only if it can on an even playing field. Maybe Big Ten needs to go to divisions and play 19 conf games. Round Robin within your division and each other team twice. Then seed the winner of each division on opposite sides of the BTT. SEC. used to do this, why did they stop? Suppose it's not good for opposite divisions revenue if UK only comes to town every other year

 

[SoonerBeAHawk]

Never understood the conference tournament thing. In what other sport do you beat your brains out competing for a conference championship, then at season's end determine another champion over the course of a weekend? Stupid.

That said, in the all the years of its existence it's actually been a pretty nice "mulligan" or second chance for Iowa. It is pretty fun to win one, but for an old traditionalist it does feel a little hollow.

 

[El Simbolo]

The BTT as Iowa's mulligan? That's only worked out once (2001), maybe twice (2002), in its existence. I wouldn't say it was our mulligan in 2006, just an extension of our good season. It rare that we overperform in the BTT

 

[Franisdaman]

Never understood the conference tournament thing. In what other sport do you beat your brains out competing for a conference championship, then at season's end determine another champion over the course of a weekend? Stupid.

That said, in the all the years of its existence it's actually been a pretty nice "mulligan" or second chance for Iowa. It is pretty fun to win one, but for an old traditionalist it does feel a little hollow.

yeah, it don't like how we hand out two B1G Championship trophies

however, it just seems that all that the 18 regular season games do is seed the teams for the BTT

with the unbalanced conference schedule, the regular season champ does not really feel like the champ, especially when they lose their first game in the BTT, get a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament and the BTT champion, MSU, gets a 2 seed in the NCAA tournament

MSU feels like our conference champ; IU does not, in my opinion