Don’t be ridiculous. I’m from Seattle and went to Stanford, and even I’m willing to admit that virtually the entire PAC 12 conference schedule is nothing but cupcakes. Alabama plays in a conference that cannibalizes itself every year by playing within the conference. Most SEC teams would beat Washington. Hell, even Kentucky, which is so weak in the SEC that people forget it’s in the conference, beat Louisville. While the SEC is currently the strongest conference, I think the future may belong to the Big 10. Why? I see a number of great younger coaches in the Big Ten, and the quality of the coaches determines the long term strength of the conference. I don’t see the same thing in the SEC, and that future may arrive sooner than people think. BTW, Saban played for Don James at Toledo and began his coaching career under James. You’d have to be an old Huskies fan to know that bit of trivia.
Disagree. You’re buying too much SEC propaganda. You can play the “this team beat that team” game all day. Bottom line is the SEC is the only league playing fewer games and scheduling body bag games in November. That is a huge competitive advantage there.
Lol
Playing SEC teams constantly is a big disadvantage. I suppose the Coaches Poll and the AP just gobble up the “propaganda”, too. There were 8 SEC teams in the top 25 until they had to starting playing each other every week. Six teams in the Big Ten and 9 of 12 in the PAC 12 would have a hard time against Kentucky and Vanderbilt. If they had to play the mid-tier SEC teams week after week they would crawl to the end the season depleted by injuries. If you were actually doing analysis instead of waving the pom poms for some conference or team, you’d point out that Alabama has a 2 significant weaknesses that the Huskies and Buckeyes could exploit; namely, Alabama’s relatively young O line that doesn’t function at full strength until the second half, and Alabama’s lack of a top 10 (or even top 20) caliber quarterback. Alabama can be beaten, but if it played a series against the other three teams, it would probably win at least 70-80% of the time. Maybe the Huskies or OSU will get lucky. They’re good enough win under the right circumstances. But, because I’m not a “fan” of any conference or team, I really don’t care who wins.
Same thing happens with college hoops. Power schools won't play better mid-majors, as their RPI is based on their conference play.
No doubt that schools like St. Mary's and Gonzaga would have less gaudier records if they played in tougher conferences, but they'd have a better chance at getting into the tournament, thanks to a higher RPI.
My beef with the WCC is there are apparently no strings attached to the individual school's share of NCAA tournament money, primarily courtesy of Gonzaga's recent tournament record. We've won our first round game for 8 years in a row, and each school is getting over $200K a year from that.
From my perch, it doesn't appear that those monies are not going into the basketball programs.
Apologies for getting off the topic.