How Weak is the ACC?

ACC ACC Teams College Basketball Stat of the Day31

There has been a lot of discussion (going back to last April) about how the ACC would be “down” this year. I even saw one comment this season proclaiming that this year was the weakest ACC in memory. So I thought it would be worth the time to put a little perspective on conference rankings and to document exactly how much the ACC is down this year. (Side note…for those that don’t like discussing RPI, this is the point where you need to move onto your next internet surfing location.)

Before I get to historical rankings, I want to point out that in a mathematically-based conference ranking, the bottom of the conference is going to matter just as much as the top. So a mathematical ranking can produce a different ranking than what a lot of people build in their mind when all they see is that Conference X has 5 teams ranked in the Top-25 and Conference Y only has 3. This difference is not any big deal as far as this entry goes, but it is something to keep in mind as this type of discussion frequently comes up in both football and basketball.

In 2010, ACC basketball is currently ranked third. I don’t think that this ranking will change now that everyone is playing their conference schedules, but I’m not totally sure. So we’ll only look at end-of-season rankings for the last 10 years (2000-2009), from the RPI calculations:

Conference Rankings

The main reason that I went back to 2000 was that I knew from previous research where the “body was buried”. In 2000, the ACC was the 7th ranked basketball conference, behind the other five BCS conferences and C-USA. So unless we have posters here that are still in elementary school, this year is not the weakest ACC you have ever seen.

For those of you that enjoy trending like I do, I have prepared some graphs to answer two different questions:
– How much difference is there between a #1 and #3 conference?
– How much difference is there between a #1 conference in different years?

To illustrate the difference between a #1 and #3 conference, here is a graph that summarizes the RPI rankings (thru games played on 1/18) of this year’s Big East teams (ranked #1) and the ACC (#3):

(Right click and open in new window/tab)

Big East vs ACC

It seems like this graph should be self-explanatory.

Now let’s look at how much difference there is in a #1 ranking from year to year. From the first table listed above, the ACC was the #1 ranked conference from 2007-2009, so let’s look at those three years:

(Right click and open in new window/tab)

ACC Breakdown from 2007-2009

This graph gives us a rough idea of how much variation can occur from one year to the next. From looking at this graph, it should also help explain why the #1 ranked conference sent seven teams to the NCAAT in 2007 and 2009, but only four teams in 2008.

So after all of this, how important is conference ranking?

First of all, I didn’t do this entry because conference ranking has some huge, little discussed significance. I did the research to provide a little perspective on this season as well as future/past seasons.

If you are one of the top teams in the country, then conference ranking probably doesn’t have much significance. Memphis (with Calipari) and Gonzaga are two recent examples of programs that have risen to national prominence/recognition even though they play in weak conferences. On the other end of the spectrum, there is no solace in being one of the bottom teams in a strong conference. But in the middle of those two extremes, conference strength can play a role for a bubble team.

We’ve discussed The Dance Card here a number of times over the last several years. Briefly, two college professors have studied the Selection Committee’s decisions and derived a formula to predict which teams will “clear the bubble”. Surprisingly enough to me, they only needed six factors to develop a formula that shows a strong correlation with the Selection Committee’s decisions:

– RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) Rank
– Conference RPI Rank
– Number of wins against teams ranked from 1-25 in RPI
– Difference in number of wins and losses in the conference
– Difference in number of wins and losses against teams ranked 26-50 in RPI
– Difference in number of wins and losses against teams ranked 51-100 in RPI

The bottom line is that State fans probably won’t care very much about conference ranking this year…but hopefully we will in the near future.

OOC Strength of Schedule

I have not delved into the inner-most calculations behind conference ranking. However, a key aspect of this ranking is the overall OOC schedule played by the ACC schools and its performance against those teams. As I was going through the SFN archives, it occurred to me that I have missed several “annual” updates on the OOC SOS. So this looks like a good place to catch-up on the OOC SOS through last year. Sometime after this season ends, I hope to put up a short entry to get us completely up to date.

Here are the OOC SOS rankings for the current ACC teams since 1999.

2009 OOC SOS

Beyond providing a way to detect trends, this table completely destroys the myth that OOC schedule strength is a matter of luck. Strength of schedule is a choice….some teams/coaches choose to have a strong schedule and others consistently run from them.

The comment that I made earlier about conference rankings also applies to SOS rankings….the bottom 4 or 5 teams in your schedule are just as important as the top 4 or 5. Scheduling a few “name” teams is not all that is required to produce a reasonable OOC schedule. Some teams/coaches obviously understand this and others either don’t understand or choose to ignore the implications of a weak OOC schedule.

Trends of interest

– I can remember making fun of Clemson’s OOC schedule in high school over 30 years ago. It’s very clear that Oliver Purnell has changed things there. In fact, Clemson has moved past State in average OOC SOS since my last update.

– It appears that Skip Prosser made a drastic change for the worse in WF’s scheduling practices over his last several seasons there….one that Dino followed his first several years. WF’s OOC SOS is currently ranked 119, which may signal a change for Dino.

– Seth Greenburg also made a drastic change at VT…or he had until this year (more on VT below).

– Leonard Hamilton and FSU may have learned a valuable lesson in 2006. The 2006 FSU team is one of the examples that I use to justify my formula for how to fall into the NIT (which is one of the reasons that we have tracked OOC SOS):

Weak OOC Schedule +
Marginal Conference Performance +
Poor Conference Tournament Performance=
NIT

Along with FSU (2006), you can add UVA (2000) and VT (2005) as ACC teams used to justify my conclusion. Outside of the ACC, ASU (2008) and Penn State (2009) also support this conclusion.

ALL CUPCAKES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

Monday night’s schedule provided an opportunity to illustrate just how cupcakes affect a team’s RPI ranking. Both UVA and VT beat an OOC cupcake on Monday night, so let’s take a closer look at what effect the cupcake victory had on these two teams:

Cupcake Damage

I get several things from this table:
– Beating a bad team doesn’t always help your RPI ranking, but beating a truly miserable team can really hurt.
– Last night provides a preview of what will happen to State when it plays NCCU on Jan 30.


CLOSING THOUGHTS

Unfortunately, none of the issues raised in this entry are likely to affect State this season. However, there is always value in providing a historical perspective of exactly where the ACC sits in a given season and how the overall conference strength varies from one season to the next. Likewise, the current philosophy of scheduling a horrendous OOC schedule is not likely to have impact on State fans this season, but could in the future.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

ACC ACC Teams College Basketball Stat of the Day

31 Responses to How Weak is the ACC?

  1. MP 01/20/2010 at 1:04 PM #

    GREAT POST!

    It is interesting to look at the BE vs. ACC graph and consider – “What if UNC was as strong as they normally are, e.g. Top 10?” If on the graph you moved UNC from mid-50’s where they currently reside to mid-10’s where they historically reside, it would “help” the ACC I suppose but it would not change the results significantly. The Big East would still trend 15 – 25 RPI positions ahead of the ACC across the entire conference.

    That’s a significant difference, e.g. 3 – 5 point differential in NCAA tournament seeding, on AVERAGE.

  2. Wulfpack 01/20/2010 at 1:50 PM #

    Well and the fact that you can expect the Big East to have at least 7 bids, if not more.

  3. wolfbuff 01/20/2010 at 2:27 PM #

    This is great analysis. What was most interesting to me was how the historically top teams have much stronger SOS. I agree with your conclusion that OOC SOS is a scheduling choice/decision rather than a matter of luck. However, if anyone is trying to draw a conclusion that OOC SOS makes you a better team, I have to disagree. The strong teams assemble strong OOC schedules to make themselves stronger in order to compete for championships. For those whose goal is to get into the NCAA tournament there is no real incentive to schedule strong OOC. That is evidenced by six-factor formula earlier in the article. OOC SOS has nothing to do with it. It’s more based on won-lost records against the different RPI groups. And the conference schedule gives any ACC team ample opportunity to play several high RPI teams. So, while it may be more fun from a fan’s standpoint to have us play the Michigan States and Kansas’ of the world, it doesn’t help a mediocre team get to the NCAA. Now, once you’ve established yourself, a smart AD would start to upgrade the OOC schedule to prepare the team better for the conference schedule and post season.

  4. dsgill87 01/20/2010 at 2:48 PM #

    VaWolf, you’re right about our RPI and I guess that is the best scale we can use. We probably won’t get as many teams in this year, but I think we will do well in the tourny. I read a post somewhere recently (I don’t think it was on this site) about the ACC being down because of coaching, especially vs. the Big East. I would tend to agree with that – the Big East is LOADED with superior coaches, especially those who can adjust to in game situations. I think its a reason we often see ACC teams flame out during March.

    “First off – I don’t hate UNC… actually kinda rooted for them in 2005.”

    “I would like to see Duke do well in the tourny this season.”

    “I hope we beat Duke tonight…”

    Wait…what?

    Is it that uncommon for State fans to pull for Duke in March?? They represent our conference well.

    I’m a fan of good basketball and the 2005 team was fun to watch and their wasn’t a guy on that team that I could really root against – like Hansborough or Eric Montross, eww. Maybe its just b/c 2005 was a good year in my life. We should have gotten them in the Elite 8. I hope the RBC is loud tonight, that place needs some mojo with the State and the Canes losing

  5. Wolfy__79 01/20/2010 at 4:09 PM #

    right now i’d say we could get four in easy. but it goes from four teams easy to the 5th 6th or 7th.. being hard, very difficult to darn nearm impossible. but that’s right now. despite bad statistics, if uva isn’t just on a high and continues there winning they are in. there’ll be another team to emerge from the ACC as a suprise. i know our schedule is pretty tough for where we are right now. but i’d say right now duke, clemson, gt and unc wouldn’t have any trouble. with fsu, md and maybe a uva/wake forest near the second tier???…???

  6. 61Packer 01/20/2010 at 7:16 PM #

    An above post noted an article about the ACC being down in basketball because of coaching.

    AMEN. The ACC has been, historically, the nation’s best basketball conference, but I don’t know that it is anymore because the quality of coaching is WAY down compared to what it used to be. When a conference that is mediocre in football has better coaches in that sport than in basketball, that tells me something, including why our basketball program has sunk into the toilet of late.

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