UConn’s Dan Hurley says the Big East “is the best conference” in the country in men’s basketball, and called out other leagues that “claim” to be the best without “championship trophies.”
UConn’s Dan Hurley calls out conferences that ‘claim’ to be the best without NCAA ‘championship trophies’
- Thread starter Tango Two
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It's a silly debate.
"Best" is a subjective term that can mean different things in different contexts. It doesn't automatically mean the conference in which the national champion plays, as Hurley suggests. That's certainly one criterion, but not the be-all-and-end-all. It just means that the "best" team happened to play in that conference.
One valid way of measuring "best" is to count the number of NCAA tournament teams a conference has compared to other conferences (both in raw numbers and percentage of teams in the conference). But you also have to take into account the number of high seeds compared to other conferences. By these measures, I certainly think a good argument could be made that the Big Ten was the "best" conference a few years ago, but I think the B1G has waned a bit in the past year or two and has been supplanted by the Big XII and perhaps the SEC.
This year, measured solely by PRE-SEASON prognostications, I would give the nod to the Big XII as the "best" conference, with the SEC and Big Ten battling for second place, and the ACC and Big East close behind. I think the B1G and SEC are *deeper* in terms of quality teams in the middle of the conferences, and this year, the SEC has a few teams that are consensus top 10 and will challenge for top 5 nationally, whereas the B1G is lagging behind in preseason top 10 type teams. On the other hand, the ACC and Big East are top heavy and have much less quality depth than the other three P5 conferences.
"Best" is a subjective term that can mean different things in different contexts. It doesn't automatically mean the conference in which the national champion plays, as Hurley suggests. That's certainly one criterion, but not the be-all-and-end-all. It just means that the "best" team happened to play in that conference.
One valid way of measuring "best" is to count the number of NCAA tournament teams a conference has compared to other conferences (both in raw numbers and percentage of teams in the conference). But you also have to take into account the number of high seeds compared to other conferences. By these measures, I certainly think a good argument could be made that the Big Ten was the "best" conference a few years ago, but I think the B1G has waned a bit in the past year or two and has been supplanted by the Big XII and perhaps the SEC.
This year, measured solely by PRE-SEASON prognostications, I would give the nod to the Big XII as the "best" conference, with the SEC and Big Ten battling for second place, and the ACC and Big East close behind. I think the B1G and SEC are *deeper* in terms of quality teams in the middle of the conferences, and this year, the SEC has a few teams that are consensus top 10 and will challenge for top 5 nationally, whereas the B1G is lagging behind in preseason top 10 type teams. On the other hand, the ACC and Big East are top heavy and have much less quality depth than the other three P5 conferences.
Historically, more titles have come from the PAC-12 (with 15 titles) and the ACC (12 titles). The SEC and the BigEast are tied with 11, and the BigTen has 10.
Hurley is saying we can determine just how good an entire 18-team conference is by the fact that one of those 18 teams happens to win the NCAA tournament?
That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
So, if a team barely gets in as a 9th seed, and then gets hot and wins the tournament, then the conference that team happened to play in is now the undisputed best conference in the country (according to this jackass). What nonsense.
That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
So, if a team barely gets in as a 9th seed, and then gets hot and wins the tournament, then the conference that team happened to play in is now the undisputed best conference in the country (according to this jackass). What nonsense.
Please stop listening to Danny Hurley.....he is a great college coach in a B+ conference that UConn begged to get back into, because they were doing absolutely nothing in the AAC....they had no relevance playing East Carolina, Tulsa, Memphis and SMU....
UConn has since tried to escape the same Big East TWICE in the last 2 years, begging to join the ACC or Big 12, only to be told "no thanks", because they have made no credible investment into football, a stadium or anything resembling a Power 4 program.
They run a conference of almost all Catholic schools with 10x the budgets of most of the Big East smaller schools. Great.....you'll show up in mid March, after the rest of Power 4 schools invest and grow their brands and try to make money, while Hurley gets to talk National Titles.
Hint......NO one cares unless UConn steps up and invests the required fees and revenue into football, facilities and coaches and then we can count how many titles they would win. After he played the LA Lakers and squeezed UConn for even more money, after they're already bleeding out as an athletic department.
Does anyone think of UConn until after the Super Bowl and College Football ends.....?? The answer is NO.....he knows it, UConn knows it and if the Big 12 called today, they'd leave on the 1st life raft out of the Big East.
UConn has since tried to escape the same Big East TWICE in the last 2 years, begging to join the ACC or Big 12, only to be told "no thanks", because they have made no credible investment into football, a stadium or anything resembling a Power 4 program.
They run a conference of almost all Catholic schools with 10x the budgets of most of the Big East smaller schools. Great.....you'll show up in mid March, after the rest of Power 4 schools invest and grow their brands and try to make money, while Hurley gets to talk National Titles.
Hint......NO one cares unless UConn steps up and invests the required fees and revenue into football, facilities and coaches and then we can count how many titles they would win. After he played the LA Lakers and squeezed UConn for even more money, after they're already bleeding out as an athletic department.
Does anyone think of UConn until after the Super Bowl and College Football ends.....?? The answer is NO.....he knows it, UConn knows it and if the Big 12 called today, they'd leave on the 1st life raft out of the Big East.
He has won back to back national championships. He has a point here.
No, what it means is he has the best team. Not necessarily the best conference. I highly doubt that Uconn would have the same record playing the Big 10 grind.
When Pike says our conference is the best….what does he base it on….Out of conference records..tourney wins..Gavitt Games or ACC challenge results? In each category I am not sure our conference is the best. Now, some make the case that we beat each other up…but at some point championships do matter. FWIW, the Big East has won 4 of the last 8 championships…different teams too.
Uconn easily defeated Illinois and Purdue on its way to the second straight National Championship.The B1G Ten clearly is more successful in football than basketball when it comes to winning national championships.
I'm not saying the Big 10 is better than the Big East either. I just think the Uconn style of play would suffer a bit playing a physical Big 10 schedule.
This just in … Dan Hurley will NOT be wearing a mask for Halloween
I think every Big 10 team would mightily struggle with UConn’s uptempo style of play the last couple of years.
UConn has no relevance might be the dumbest thing you've ever said. Cmon, you are better than that.
I would add ... Rutgers, the Big Ten's nominal #13 team in a 14 team league (tied for 12th), last season beat SHU, at SHU's secondary home court ... SHU was the Bug East's #4 team (by the standings).
Which COULD say that while the Big East has had single teams win 4 championships in the last 8 years, and the last 2 seasons, that league is not nearly as deep as the Big Ten, if the Big Ten's #12 or #13 team can beat the Bug East's #4 team, at the home court of the Big East team.
Just saying ...
Which COULD say that while the Big East has had single teams win 4 championships in the last 8 years, and the last 2 seasons, that league is not nearly as deep as the Big Ten, if the Big Ten's #12 or #13 team can beat the Bug East's #4 team, at the home court of the Big East team.
Just saying ...
you win you get to talk; but that isn't stopping our conference or the ACC or Big12 (is that still their name) or SEC from packing their arenas every game year after year and generating revenue, while this shell called the Big East - which used to be the best in the country - tries to stay relevant. Maybe if Villanova or GT actually got good again - they would have a much more competitive league.
From 2014-2018, the New England Patriots were the most dominant team in the NFL.... 62-18 record, 3 Super Bowl wins, 1 Super Bowl loss, and 1 AFC championship loss. The rest of the division went a combined 104-136 over those seasons, with just 2 other playoff qualifiers that both lost in the wild card game. In none of those years was the AFC East the best division in the NFL, even though the Patriots were winning championships.
Whenever someone starts touting their league/conference/etc as the best because of championships, they really don't want you to pay attention to how weak the bottom teams are.
Whenever someone starts touting their league/conference/etc as the best because of championships, they really don't want you to pay attention to how weak the bottom teams are.
Here's a hint for you:
When Pike says our conference is the best he is not basing it on anything at all nor is he concerned with whether the statement is true.
Teams win championships, not conferences. The whole debate is stupid but the people who think Hurley "has a point" are extra stupid.
This just in: coffee shop down the street claims to have the "world's best coffee". WHAT ARE THEY BASING IT ON??
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It's in every coach's best interest to claim their conference is the best/toughest/deepest/etc. Committee members are human, and thinking a team is coming from the "toughest conference" might get an extra bid or get a slightly better seed line or region. They don't have to base it on anything - it's a narrative that benefits them, so they'll push it.
Well the bottom line is that schools play for championships! The Big 10 coaches need to pipe down about best conference. Past 10 years it has been Big East and ACC winning the championships!
Why? It's just rhetoric.
You are correct that schools play to win and ultimately for championships. But not sure what that has to do with how strong or weak a conference is from top to bottom. Hurley has built a very strong program at UConn - and he should certainly brag and tout that. But beyond computer models- there really is no good barometer for measuring Conference Strength going into a new season in a landscape where there is now significant player transitions from year to year.
There is zero truth to the statement he made. There is basically no reasonable metric that would make the Big East the #1 conference in any year post breakup.
I was talking more about a lot of conference coaches that say they are the best, and they really aren't. There is truth there.
Have you done any research? In past 24 years, 8/24 NCAA championships were big east teams. The math shows your off base.
This would be more convincing if he didn't go on to do the same thing right after saying that.
That's not math. "Which conference contained the team that won the championship?" is not a reasonable proxy for strongest/best/whatever conference. All hail the 2020-21 West Coast Conference, undisputed best conference in the land.
So what are you saying? Post big east is different, but still have a lot of strength. The games are fast paced, and national championships matter.
Well, I'm saying a lot of things (not all toward you specifically):
(1) Hurley saying the Big East is the strongest because xxxx is the same as Pike saying the Big Ten is the strongest because yyyy. Neither of them have analyzed this they are just hyping up their conferences. I'm fine with this but it's weird to me to say it's somehow bad for Pike to do it but good for Hurley to do it.
(2) Hurley's specific argument is stupid. "Which conference contained the champion?" is basically useless when comparing one larger group of teams to another larger group of teams.
(3) No one can agree on what exactly it means to have a "strong" conference which goes back to #1 (a bunch of coaches can coachspeak their conferences up, who cares?).
(4) To the extent that people CAN agree on what it means, and actually measure it, the Big Ten has been stronger recently than the Big East, though probably neither have been the best which has been the B12, and they are both good, strong conferences. To that point:
Torvik rankings
2020 B10 #1, BE #2
2021 B10 #1, BE #5
2022 B10 #2, BE #4
2023 B10 #2, BE #3
2024 B10 #2, BE #3
Massey ratings
2020 B10 #1, BE #3
2021 B10 #1, BE #5
2022 B10 #2, BE #4
2023 B10 #2, BE #3
2024 B10 #2, BE #3
Sagarin
I can't find historical but last year he had B10 #2 and BE #3.
You will notice in this sample that the B10 is ahead of the BE every single time.
(5) People here have a really weird obsession with:
(i) Denegrating our own conference
(ii) Felating Dan Hurley
The championships thing would be a little bit more interesting if there were any OTHER teams from the Big East winning then. Okay, let’s admit UConn is better than anyone in the Big Ten. There are 28 other teams between the two conferences that should presumably enter into a comparison somehow.
Flux for the win!
Top to bottom B10 has been very strong as a league putting them close or at the top of all “leagues” YoY
That does not mean the league has a NCAA championship. I guess once we win it this year we can make the claim in both ends
Top to bottom B10 has been very strong as a league putting them close or at the top of all “leagues” YoY
That does not mean the league has a NCAA championship. I guess once we win it this year we can make the claim in both ends
This. Saying whatever conference the champion comes from is the best conference makes 0 sense. If Gonzaga won, no one would think the mountain west was the best conference
Best conference should factor in ALL the teams, top to bottom
If you want to give more weight to elite teams and discount terrible ones, sure, but you should at least be factoring in all teams and not just pretending the bottom third doesn't exist