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For The Big10 Title

And a # 1 seed in the Big tournament is all on the line Saturday when SC and UCLA meet.

No, not the men they’re kind of boring to be honest with Cronin getting more attention than the UCLA team because of his out of control behavior, and a SC team absolutely imploding down the stretch.

Bring on the Women, they fill the stands, top ranked in the nation, showcase the two best players in the Country, and very likely will meet again in the final four. WTF more could you ask for?

4 comments

4 Comments

Java

Don’t the women have a tournament? Conference? And if so isn’t this game therefore a bit meaningless?

RWC

Replying to

Yes, regarding your first question.

Big ten tournament before the actual NCAA tournament.

I guess you could deem the game Saturday meaningless if winning the conference outright doesn’t mean anything.

Java

Replying to

Conference champ is tournament winner. One game negating an entire 18 game season.

Always seemed stupid and unfair to me Kinda like making Oregon win 3-4 football games at the end and negating all that came before

Waldorf

19h

Replying to

"Conference champ is tournament winner."

Huh?

Did you mean that the winner of the conference tournament is the winner of the conference? If so, not true. Don't believe me? Have a look at this link below (look under "List of Seasons"). Why would it have two separate columns for the conference champs and conference tournament champs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-12_Conference_men%27s_basketball

The importance of the conference tournament varies by conference. In a conference like the Big 10 , where multiple teams are usually invited to the NCAA tournament, it means little. But for a team from Conference Buttfuck U.S.A., it could mean everything because it's an automatic bid to the Big Dance. In that respect, all the conference tournament does is allow teams on the bubble to make the NCAA tournament or get a better seeding. Why else would the conference tournament winner get an automatic big to the NCAA tournament, but the team that wins the regular season have to settle for an "at large" bid? And are you really saying that a team that goes 16-2 in conference play is not a better team than, say, a team that wins the conference tournament but went 10-8 during the regular season? Bullshit.

USC went 9-9 in conference play in 2008-09, but they won the conference tournament, including beating the regular season second-place team, UCLA, and third-place Arizona State, both nationally ranked teams. Hey, more power to them. But are you really going to say that USC was the "conference champion"? If so, hang a banner.

Teams that win the conference outright (best conference record) but don't win the conference tournament are rarely penalized when it comes to NCAA seeding. It's almost as if the people who make up the NCAA tournament brackets know that the conference tournaments don't really mean jackshit except for the teams from Conference Buttfuck U.S.A. The people who make up the brackets look for a number of things when it comes to seeding, primarily Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins (and losses).

This article is about 3 years old, but it's also interesting if one looks at the recent trends regarding the success of conference tournament winners in the NCAA tournament:

https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/how-much-does-conference-tournament-success-matter-in-the-ncaa-tournament

So, nothing is really negated by the conference tournament, but it allows a number of other teams to advance in ways that they hadn't been able to before (when conference tournaments didn't even exist, and you had to win your conference outright just to be invited to the NCAA tournament). It's like a participation trophy.

Any program that hangs conference tournament championship banners in their gym likely hasn't won shit.

Edited