Fun With the Big XII

In case you missed it, last night was the first of what will likely be many wild nights in the Big XII. Kansas with the help of the travel seen round the world held off Kansas State at Phog Allen and Texas Tech beat West Virginia in overtime. Expect more as the season rolls along.

As of this morning, the Big XII had 8 teams in the top 40 of KenPom. The two outsiders are Oklahoma at 66 and Texas at 78, only the two flagships of the league. In comparison, the vaunted ACC has 9 teams in the top 40 out of 15 teams.

Comparing the leagues this way is just one and certainly not the best way to compare leagues. I'm not sure what is the best way. RealTime RPI has the Big East ranked first, followed by the ACC and Big XII. But let's speculate what March holds based on KenPom.

Each league has 3 teams in the top 8. We could extrapolate this to say each league has 3 Elite 8 level teams. The ACC has Virginia at number 2 and the Big XII has WVU at 4, so again, let's say those are two final four teams. Which is the better league? The ACC has Louisville at 9 and the Big XII doesn't check back in until 27. The ACC has two more teams ahead Texas Tech at 27.

Now, it's January 4th, so a lot will change. One thing that won't, the Big XII is going to be a treat nearly every night. It's as evenly matched top-to-bottom as any league. Unlike the Big East, there isn't a DePaul in the league.

The other thing the Big XII has that the ACC lacks is the round robin format. As conference expansion talk escalated this past fall, my argument against it for the Big XII was exactly this, they actually crown a true champion in football and basketball. The ACC champion could be determined by schedule luck. 

This is all argumentative anyway. What the best conference is, we truly don't have a way to measure despite what we think. Whatever the case, the Big XII will certainly be as fun and unpredictable as any this season.