Don't Believe the Hype: the ACC is Better
than the Big East
By Scott Burks
Fans of the Atlantic Coast Conference thinks nothing can be finer than Duke
and Carolina. Supporters of the Big East think that the conversation
concerning which college basketball conference is the best should start and
end with the Big East.
Welcome to the
2008-2009 NCAA college basketball season boys and girls! It seems like
every year the college basketball season doesn't begin without fans pitting
the Big East vs. the ACC. Just the old days isn't it? We've got
yahoos and fans of both conferences who believe that their conferences are
the best.
Well, I'll agree
with them on one thing: the ACC and Big East are hands-down the best college
basketball conferences in the country. This rant will present an
objective view on which conference is the best. Feel free to offer
your two cents at the end of this rant.
Number of teams
ranked in the AP poll: ACC 4, Big East 7.
Number of teams ranked in the fraudulent ESPN/Coaches poll: ACC 4, Big
East 8.
Number of teams ranked in the top 10 in both polls: ACC 3, Big East 4.
Number of teams ranked in the top 15 in both polls: ACC 4, Big East 5.
Now compare those to the number of teams in
both conferences. The ACC has 12 teams, while the Big East has 25,
...I mean 16 teams. Also, once we dig a little deeper, here are the
ratio of teams with winning records to those with losing records in both
conferences: ACC 10/12, Big East 12/16.
Bottom line:
while the Big East does have the ACC beat in terms of QUANTITY, but the ACC
has the Big East beat in terms of QUALITY (the ratio of winning/losing
teams). Based on that alone, the ACC is the better conference.
