Is the Gap Really Closing?
Amidst the success of four mid-major schools reaching the Sweet 16 and George Mason reaching the Final Four, there is much talk about the gap closing between schools in the power conferences and mid-major conferences. Although this has been said for a while by plenty, including college coaches, it has naturally risen to a new level of late. But is that really happening?
One coach who certainly believes the gap is closing, and closing fast, is Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. Last March, he hinted at this after being told that while his Michigan State team knocked off Old Dominion in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Bucknell had knocked off Kansas. Izzo already knew that right before his team played, Vermont beat Syracuse on the same court. When first informed of Bucknell’s win, he looked a little bewildered since it was the first he heard about it.
“I’ve been telling our media up in East Lansing for the whole year that we’re not ready to accept parity,” Izzo said. “We’re not ready to accept Butler beating Indiana – we’re not ready as fans or media, and believe it or not, we’re not ready as coaches, either. It’s a reality.”
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim made a similar remark after the Vermont loss.
“There just isn’t that big a gap anymore between the so-called major conferences and the best teams from the other conferences,” said Boeheim.
Certainly, first round wins by mid-majors continue to happen in the NCAA Tournament. But last year, only Wisconsin-Milwaukee moved on to the Sweet 16, where they were promptly dispatched by Illinois in the regional semifinal. That happened after a few teams, such as Gonzaga and Kent State, had made runs to the Elite Eight, and a few others had made the Sweet 16. This year, four mid-majors made the Sweet 16, with George Mason being the first mid-major to reach the Final Four since Penn and Indiana State in 1979.
It all looks like some progress. Now that a mid-major has reached the Final Four, the gap must be closing swiftly, some will think. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Power conferences still took 26 of the 34 at-large bid this year, and the play-in game was still between two teams from smaller conferences who won their conference’s automatic bid – not between the last two at-large teams selected. The NIT was even worse, as teams who finished next-to-last and even last in their conferences got in – of course, they finished that low in the Big Ten and the ACC. Could they invite the team that finished last in the SWAC? After all, having a .500 record or better is no longer a requirement. That’s the kind of performance that coaches get fired for; but somehow it’s acceptable for the NIT committee – ironically, a committee composed entirely of former coaches.
Clearly, the power conferences still rule. In several recent seasons, Gonzaga has been hyped up as a team that could make a deep NCAA Tournament run, but they stand alone in that regard and have made it to the Sweet 16 this year for the first time in five years. But based on the results over the years, it seems more like early wins by mid-majors do little more than clear the way for other power conference teams to make the deepest runs.
That would seem to run counter to what Izzo and Boeheim said, something which has been echoed by other high-major coaches. Had Memphis made it, they would technically qualify as a mid-major, but Conference USA is just one year removed from being a legitimate high-major conference and Memphis has been a high-level team for a while.
But the most important effect of what Izzo spoke of regarding those not ready to accept an even-ness in the college game is seen well before the NCAA Tournament. It gets discussed a lot right before it, both right before the 65 teams are selected and in the first few days after it as well. It’s also the primary reason that we need to think about this idea that college basketball now has a completely even playing field.
Non-conference games every year are usually highlighted by matchups among national powers. Early games this year that drew plenty of attention included Duke’s win over Memphis in the NIT Season Tip-Off, Texas knocking off Iowa and West Virginia in the Guardians Classic, several games in the Maui Invitational, and non-conference rivalry games like Kentucky against Louisville. Those were all highly-anticipated games, or ones that materialized in tournaments and had people glued to the television when they did happen.
On the other hand, games like Stanford’s early losses to UC Irvine and Montana or Iona’s win over Iowa State get attention after they happen because of the result. The talk is about Stanford having a string of bad losses (even though Montana won the Big Sky championship and had 24 wins on the season), or along the lines of, “how could Iowa State lose to Iona?” More importantly, they tend to have a bad after-effect – that of the losing team not wanting to play the winning team again in the future.
For years now, it’s been known that mid-majors don’t play the toughest schedules because of their conference schedules, which means they have to get wins against teams from major conferences to have any chance at an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. But more and more, it seems like those wins are harder to come by, and it’s not because the power conference teams are getting better. Instead, high-major schools will often duck a good mid-major, preferring not to risk a “bad loss”. Wins like those by Vermont, Bucknell and Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as well as ones like Northwestern State’s first round win over Iowa this year and George Mason’s run to the Final Four, are affecting this in a negative way, and Izzo admitted it last year.
“If I’m going to take a chance on getting beat, I’m going to play Duke,” said Izzo.
Really, Tom. Is that how you view a basketball game – taking a chance on getting beat? Surely a coach who has won as much as you have, one of the elite coaches in the game, doesn’t view a game like that. Coaches are supposed to teach kids to play to win, not to play not to lose, right? So shouldn’t a game be seen as a chance to win?
Playful jabs aside, Izzo is an appropriate person to comment on this subject matter, as he is known for taking on all comers not unlike retiring Temple coach John Chaney. He was the subject of much discussion in 2003-04 due to his team’s very difficult non-conference schedule, one which his team struggled with en route to an 18-12 season that ended with a first round loss in the NCAA Tournament. That year, Spartan non-conference opponents included Kansas, DePaul, Duke, Oklahoma, Kentucky, UCLA and Syracuse, along with Ivy League champion Penn. They went 5-6, beating only DePaul and Penn among the aforementioned teams, reaching the NCAA Tournament largely on the strength of their 12-4 Big Ten record.
But more to the point, as mid-majors continue to win in the NCAA Tournament and during the regular season, power conference teams will continue to back off and not play them because they’re afraid of losing. That may not be the mindset of a true competitor, but that is how things are and anytime in life someone has an unfair advantage, they aren’t willing to part with it if they can help it. Teams will now schedule Gonzaga because a loss to the Bulldogs won’t be seen as a bad loss if Gonzaga wins, but there is really no other team that can make that claim.
Part of this can be owed to the perception created of these teams. The aforementioned NCAA wins, as well as some of the notable non-conference wins by Montana and Iona, are termed “upsets”, implying that those teams simply aren’t as good and the favored team simply lost the game. They are made out to be a bad loss for the favored team. In reality, the “upsets” come at the hands of good teams, and that’s often the case during the season as well. Bucknell, for example, beat Pittsburgh last season and also twice topped a Holy Cross team that had a solid RPI as well. The Bison may have been a No. 14 seed, but they were far from a bad team and a loss to them is far from a bad loss.
Northwestern State’s win over Iowa is notable because they played several high-major schools during the season. They were a senior-laden team and thought to be the favorites in the Southland Conference entering the season, so the Demons didn’t appear to be an easy win. They picked up non-conference wins at Mississippi State and Oklahoma State and against Oregon State in the Rainbow Classic, while taking Iowa State to two overtimes.
George Mason’s run to the Final Four is notable for a similar reason, as the Patriots played a strong non-conference schedule and got into the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. They played at Wake Forest, at MAAC regular season co-champion Manhattan, at Mississippi State and at Wichita State in the BracketBusters event in February. Add that to their 15-3 mark in arguably the Colonial Athletic Association’s best season, and the Patriots were clearly well-prepared for the NCAA Tournament games against Michigan State, North Carolina, Wichita State and Connecticut.
A loss to either team is hardly a “bad loss” for those they defeated. Clearly, the Demons and Patriots were battle-tested in addition to being good teams, and it paid off come NCAA Tournament time. The Demons were a No. 14 seed like Bucknell was last year, and the Patriots were a No. 11 seed – one of the last at-large teams – but neither is a bad team by any stretch of the imagination.
Izzo, still convinced that the gap is really closing, understands this. The problem is that it seems like only a select number of people – players, coaches and some in the national media, and perhaps some college basketball junkies – understand it as well.
“Sometimes, I think we get caught looking at these programs as second tier, second level – there’s going to be none of that in about five more years,” Izzo said. “The parity is going to be so good, there will be none of that.”
Connecticut has been known for playing a fair share of teams from smaller conferences in its non-conference schedule over the years, while mixing in a game or two against elite teams like Arizona, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Asked about the possible effects of wins in the NCAA Tournament, in matchups the schools have no control over, Calhoun explained his scheduling philosophy.
“We play games for a couple of different reasons: to help our RPI, get on national TV to help recruiting, or truly speaking, to make money,” Calhoun explained. “So if you’re going to schedule us, give us one of those three reasons. We make $350,000-$400,000 per game at home; if you want to give us a $400,000 guarantee, we’ll play any of those teams.”
This past season, the Huskies played seven games against teams in the bottom 100 of the RPI during their non-conference schedule: Pepperdine (248), Army (322), Texas Southern (307), New Hampshire (250), Morehead State (321), Stony Brook (310) and Quinnipiac (260). Three of those schools finished the season in the bottom 25 out of 334 Division I schools. In the end, it didn’t hurt the Huskies, whose strength of schedule was still one of the top 50 in the country since they were in the Big East, and they got a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
This reflects what many mid-major coaches have known for a while: scheduling a team from a conference like the Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, or any other major conference, is easier said than done unless you’re a team from the depths of the smaller conferences. Mid-major coaches have said that they’ve had schools laugh at them when they ask about playing them. On the other hand, teams from power conferences lined up to play Vermont this year, as the Catamounts were the least experienced team in college basketball and lost a ton from last year’s team.
Brad Brownell, head coach of Colonial Athletic Association champion UNC-Wilmington, has said that the ACC schools in North Carolina don’t want to play them. Mid-majors don’t want to give a team like that a guarantee and then possibly lose the game. From there, one might say a home-and-home should be in order instead – but if you’re a mid-major coach, don’t even think about suggesting that they give you a return game at your gym.
“If we had 18 home games, who knows what our record would be right now,” Brownell said during the CAA Tournament after noting that his team had played 13 home games. “We just don’t have those opportunities.”
And you can bet that George Mason will have a very tough time scheduling teams from power conferences for next season’s non-conference games.
In light of this, the yearly discussion that ensues about at-large bids, with the question of “Who did you beat?” is one that can’t be glossed over. Looking at RPI ratings or seeing that a team played just two games all season long against teams from a power conference will only tell so much. Chances are, they would like to have played against more such teams, but didn’t get the opportunity and through no fault of their own.
The NCAA appears to have sent a message to a few teams this year (Florida State, George Washington and Boston College among them) who played weak non-conference schedules, although it was a bit inconsistent in how it was done. That may give a little hope for teams not backing down from the better mid-majors in the future. But the trend of power conference teams backing away from good mid-majors because they can is not new, so this hope is tempered with a strong dose of reality.
If the gap is truly closing, surely teams from the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC won’t mind playing teams like those at the top of the Colonial, Missouri Valley or any of a number of other mid-major conferences. If they are truly better teams, as they surely like to think they are, then they shouldn’t be afraid to take on the best teams in conferences outside of the power conferences.
Let’s see North Carolina play UNC-Wilmington. Let’s see Syracuse play Hofstra. An in-state clash between Illinois and Southern Illinois would be nice. Wichita State and Kansas would make for a great matchup. Pacific and either California or Stanford would make for a good game. And how great would it be to see LSU take on Northwestern State?
We can pipe dream, can’t we?
