TBI's Conference Calling 2014-15 College Basketball Conference Previews (Part 2)

Back for more, eh? Expecting that the new guy over at BT Powerhouse, SB Nation's finest stop for all your Big Ten basketball needs, will mindlessly anoint his favorite conference as America's best?

If you expect that a guy who's glossed himself The Professor for the better part of a decade will do anything mindlessly, you obviously haven't passed through here much.

So let's check out Part 2 of TBI's conference rankings and see if the Big Ten does, in fact, reign supreme once more. (BTW, this is also post No. 100 in the sporadic history of this slightly-above-mediocre college basketball repository. So, yay me, I guess.)

Conference Calling: Players to Watch for Championship Week (Part III)

Yeah, it's Tuesday, not Saturday. I get it. Anyway, let's get into the final batch of conference tournaments and the players that might make some impact therein.

More after the jump.

Back Iron Tournament: The REAL 68 Best Teams in America

It used to be called the Bilas Invitational, but the Back Iron Tournament (BIT for short) has evolved to a point where even Bilas's epic swag cannot contain it.


Suffice it to say that this is a tournament that will never happen, but certainly should. It lacks the democratic appeal of the everyone-has-a-vote NCAA tournament, preferring a more résumé-based approach.

The only way to get into the BIT is to earn it by being one of America's 68 best teams.

For those who are unfamiliar, check the explanation after the jump. For those who are familiar, the parameters have changed, so they need to check after the jump, too.

Conference Calling: The Top 13

So, the 31 in 31 series has met its unfortunate demise. It was an ambitious project for a one-man operation, especially when said man has family and work obligations to contend with and no media monolith like ESPN or CBS behind him providing a paycheck.

If that paycheck came, it would seriously help defray the other stuff, so if anyone's willing to donate...ahem.

Since we didn't reach the upper echelon of the conference rankings, let me at least disclose where the top 13 leagues ranked in this season's TBI list...after this here jump.

Conference Calling: ACC

In one of the first posts here on TBI, I discussed why the ACC was still one of college basketball's biggest dogs. As the season wears on, however, the conference's description is taking on a more negative tone, less "big dog" and more "dogging it."

Until Conference Realignment Roulette drags North Carolina off to the SEC or Duke to the Big 12 or something just as ludicrous, the ACC can never be completely written off. At least, UNC and Duke can never be written off. With the way the rest of the league is operating, it may very well be safe to ignore the other 10 teams.

• Real Time RPI currently has the ACC ranked below the Mountain West, of all things, in league RPI. The MWC has shown no fear of the Atlantic Coast, with not only UNLV's big win over the Tar Heels, but also TCU supplying the only blemish on the Virginia Cavaliers' season so far.

Joey Brackets' "Best Conference": Is Big 12 Just Top-Heavy?

Last month, Joe "Joey Brackets" Lunardi made an argument that the Big 12 was, in fact, college basketball's best conference. It's an Insider piece, so if you're not slipping the WWL some money, just take my word for it.

Lunardi based his arguments on five-year RPI averages, 10-year averages of NCAA bids by conference, and NCAA win averages and winning percentages.

While the ACC had the best five-year RPI average, the Big 12 topped the charts in NCAA bids, NCAA wins, NCAA winning percentage, and percentage of possible NCAA bids. However, there are a few caveats.

Joey went ahead and applied the results of Conference Roulette 2011, such as Texas A&M to the SEC, Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC, and Colorado and Utah shipping out to make the Pac-10 into the Pac-12. I'll go one step further and add TCU to the Big 12, although they make absolutely no difference in the numbers, having not been to the tourney since the Billy Tubbs era. (However, the Big East's latest round of invitations are not included in my data.)

For me, though, the biggest red flag came when Lunardi named the six schools that have been in each of the last 10 NCAA tournaments: Duke, Pitt, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Kansas, and Texas. Two from the Big Ten, two from the Big 12, and two from the "new" ACC.

So, here's the question: is the Big 12 really tops in college basketball, or is it simply being propped up by the consistent success of the Jayhawks and the Longhorns?

This experiment will cut the heads off the snakes, so to speak. Take out each conference's top two NCAA Tournament performers and examine which conferences spread out the production, and which ones are dominated by two powerhouse programs.

Read the figures after the jump.