State of the Conference OR How large is the hill

Net Rankings Top 140 without the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, PAC-12, SEC

Teams in Bold are ranked first in their league per NET. They may or may not actually be first in their conference standings.

3 Gonzaga WCC
4 Dayton Atlantic 10
5 San Diego St.Mountain West
14 BYU WCC
24 Houston AAC
32 Saint Mary's (CA) WCC
35 Utah St. Mountain West

==NCAA at large line?==

38 ETSU SoCon
42 Rhode Island Atlantic 10
44 UNI MVC
46 Wichita St. AAC
50 Liberty ASUN
53 Richmond Atlantic 10
55 Cincinatti AAC
60 Yale Ivy
61 VCU Atlantic 10
62 Memphis AAC
66 UConn AAC
67 Furman SoCon
69 Saint Louis Atlantic 10
73 Davidson Atlantic 10
74 UNC Greensboro SoCon
79 Akron MAC
81 SMU AAC
82 SFA Southland
83 Nevada Mountain West
86 Tulsa AAC
87 Vermont America East
90 Louisiana Tech C-USA
91 Duquesne Atlantic 10
92 North Texas C-USA
93 Boise St. Mountain West

97 San Francisco WCC ===4th WCC===

98 Loyola Chicago MVC
99 Colorado St. Mountain West
101 Indiana St. MVC
104 Belmont OVC
105 Harvard Ivy
106 UC Irvine Big West
107 Bradley MVC

109 Pacific WCC =====5th WCC===

110 Northern Colorado Big Sky
111 UNLV Mountain West
112 Temple AAC
113 Hofstra CAA
114 St. Bonaventure Atlantic 10
115 Ball St. MAC
117 Texas St. Sun Belt
118 South Dakota St. Summit League
119 Georgia St. Sun Belt
121 Colgate Patriot
122 New Mexico St. WAC
123 Kent St. MAC
124 Northeastern CAA
125 Western Ky. C-USA
126 Wright St. Horizon
127 UCF AAC
128 UT Arlington Sunbelt
129 South Fla. AAC
130 Missouri St.MVC
131 Montana Big Sky
132 Toledo MAC
133 Valparaiso MVC


134 Pepperdine WCC
137 Santa Clara WCC
===7th WCC===
138 Buffalo MAC
139 Massachusetts Atlantic 10
140 Little Rock Sun Belt

149 Winthrop Big South
166 Siena MAAC
181 Saint Francis (PA) NEC
187 Prairie View SWAC
257 Norfolk St. MEAC

I just compiled this list.

What can we see here? My initial thoughts without looking too deeply.

The Atlantic 10, and AAC are very strong, but the WCC and Mountain West appear to be the only 2 conferences outside the power 5+1(Big East) that are going to get multiple tournament bids.

The 7th ranked WCC per NET team is good enough to be the best team in 5 other conferences and likely good enough to compete for the conference title in 9 more (those with a NET 100+). To stay out of the bottom 3 in the WCC at this point requires you to be able to be a conference champion in approximately half the D1 conferences. Getting into the top half likely requires you to be competitive for the championship in another 4 (75-100)

Per the ESPN2 broadcast of SMC-SCU, BYU is a projected 6 seed, and SMC is a projected 9 seed.

#109 UOP is two games ahead of #97 USF in conference play, taking advantage of the unbalanced schedule of only having to play GU and BYU once each.

up7587 wrote:

#109 UOP is two games ahead of #97 USF in conference play, taking advantage of the unbalanced schedule of only having to play GU and BYU once each.

I bet this system doesn’t last long.

Geezaldinho wrote:

up7587 wrote:

#109 UOP is two games ahead of #97 USF in conference play, taking advantage of the unbalanced schedule of only having to play GU and BYU once each.

I bet this system doesn’t last long.

The irony of this set up is that it was put in place, again per Gonzaga's instructions, so that their computer rankings didn't suffer due to playing the "stiffs" at the bottom of the conference.  Allowing them two extra games to schedule "more worthy" opponents...like this year for example:
                             - Lewis and Clark State
                             - North Dakota
                             - Arkansas Pine-Bluff
                             - Alabama State
                             - UT Arlington
                             - CSU Bakersfield
                             - Texas Southern
                             - Eastern Washington
                             - Detroit Mercy
I'm going to guess the built in excuse for this less than dynamic schedule would be "we can't get anyone to play us." The real reason of course is that every game listed above was a one off home game, while if there was a balanced conference schedule one (just one) of those games would be on the road.  

I don't see anything changing in regard to the new and improved conference scheduling unless Gonzaga/BYU somehow get more $ from it.  

This is how the rich get richer and the uphill climb is really uphill.