(02-10-2022 09:30 PM)MT FAN Wrote: The amount of games won in the NCAA and NIT tournaments is much higher for CUSA vs the Sun Belt. All one bid conferences are not equal.
This is true, but you also need to weigh a few additional factors:
1) How long ago were those wins?
2) Are the teams who earned those wins still in the conference?
3) How many conference teams combined for those wins?
A single stellar team could theoretically advance to the Sweet Sixteen every year (picking up 2 wins each year; 3 if they participate in a play-in game), inflating their conference's tournament win totals, even if every other team in the conference sucks.
That may seem like an extreme example, but it happens to some degree in a few low-end mid-majors, especially if you're only looking at wins from the last X seasons.
At the end of the day, the single best way to gauge conference strength isn't ratings or even (in some cases) postseason wins.
It's head to head matchups against strong teams from other conferences. (As Miner suggests, challenges are great for this.)
If your out-of-conference games consistently end in 95-59 blowout losses, you're not a very good basketball team. And if it happens to all the teams in your conference, you're not in a very good basketball conference.
If you're consistently on the winning side of those scores (along with your conference mates) then congratulations! You might be pretty good. Time to boost the quality of your scheduling.
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Average Kenpom College Basketball Conference Rankings
