Big 12 looking good
Excellent, excellent performance by the Sooners against Saint Joseph’s on Friday in the NCAA Tournament. A few shaky moments after taking the 19-point lead, but very few NCAA victors go without some shaky moments.
And the Big 12 owes the Sooners a big thank you. Here’s what OU did for the conference: kept the Big 12 at the top of the NCAA performance chart.
OU was the final Big 12 team playing in the first round, and here are the league standings after the first round:
Big East: 7-1
Big 12: 5-1
ACC & Big Ten: 3-1
Pac-10: 3-3
SEC: 3-3
I believe NCAA Tournament results provide the status of a league. All the talk about regular-season strength and conference prowess is just that. Talk. The NCAA Tournament is where strength is revealed. And truth is, second-round games usually separate contenders and pretenders among the leagues. But at least the Big 12 is in the running to stake its claim.
Let’s examine a couple of things. First, the Big 12′s first-round performance was remarkable. The Big 12 was seeded to go 3-3, yet when 5-1. No other league overcame such seeding.
The Big East was seeded to be 7-1 and went 7-1.
The Pac-10 was seeded to be 5-1 and went 3-3.
The ACC was seeded to be 4-0 and went 3-1.
The Big Ten was seeded to be 4-0 and went 3-1.
The SEC was seeded to be 3-3 and went 3-3.
So now, you see, how impressive was the Big 12 performance. How will the Big 12 fare in the second round? It won’t be easy.
Kansas-UNLV and Texas-Miami figure to be Big 12 victories. But the Big 12 will be underdogs in the other games: OU-Louisville, Texas A&M-UCLA and Kansas State-Wisconsin. The Aggies aren’t likely to stay with UCLA, but if the Sooners or Wildcats could pull an upset, that’s more ammunition for the Big 12.
The Big East could win this conference track meet. The Big East has an interesting second round. In addition to OU-Louisville, the Big East has Villanova-Siena, Georgetown-Davidson, Marquette-Stanford, West Virginia-Duke, Notre Dame-Washington State, Pitt-Michigan State. The Big East is seeded to go 4-3 in the second round. If the Big East does that, it will be tough to beat.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Go Big East! Just beat Duke to go 8-1 thus far, and the one loss was by ONE POINT. Unquestionably the strongest conference in America
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Great article breaking down the seeding records. Big 12 is doing great this year, and while I am a Big East fan (St. John’s), I do have Texas over Pitt in the Eilite 8 to get to the Final Four. I watched them play against Kansas and I was impressed. Our coach, Norm Roberts, is a Bill Self apprentice. And let’s face it, don’t we all really just root against the ACC in the end? Anyway, nice job.
Hi Berry,
Did you catch the A&M-UCLA match-up last night? While UCLA relied on that defense to stifle A&M, it seemd that there were some really bad calls (or no calls) at the end of the game that costs A&M. But if their guy had made, and not missed, those two foul shots, who knows whaqt the outcome might have been.
Barry,
I generally agree with your assertions about conference strength manifesting in the tournament, especially in the 2nd round.
It’ll be tough for OU to get by L’ville tomorrow but I’m happy with what we’ve gotten so far. I saw where L’ville is a 7.5 favorite-ouch!
Finally,I’ve admired your columns since the Blake years and your videos on the Sports front page are well done. I didn’t know you had on camera skills, too!
thanks,
James