Jim Boeheim calls out the Big Ten, says ACC was the best conference last season - is he right?

Syracuse men's basketball coach reminds reporters of the importance of the NCAA Tournament

Long time Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim did not mince words Friday during his media day press conference. On the topic of what defines a season as successful, Boeheim made it pretty clear that it's all about the NCAA Tournament.

“If you can’t play in the [NCAA] tournament then you’re just not good,” Boeheim said. “At the end of the day, you play for the tournament."

Nine teams represented the Big Ten in the dance, and their tournament record was 9-9.

"You can say what you want about the Big Ten," Boeheim said Friday. "They sucked in the tournament. To me, that’s what they did."

The ACC is coming off a down regular season by its standards. Only five teams made the big dance - and Wake Forest, who went 13-7 in league play, was sent to the NIT.  The key words there are "regular season". To Boeheim, it wasn’t a down year - he thinks the ACC was the best league in the country in 2021-22.

"It's obvious who was better," he said. "We won the most games in the tournament. So who was the best league last year in the country?

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“Kansas was the best team [last year],” Boeheim said. “But the best league? What league won 14 games and only lost five [in the NCAA tournament]? The ACC. To me, that’s the best league."

That 14-5 record comprised of two teams making the Final Four (Duke, North Carolina), while one (Miami) reached the Elite Eight. On top of that, Notre Dame won two games as well. 

"I don't care what [The Big Ten] did during the regular season," said Boeheim. "They beat themselves. All of their wins were in their league. If you can't play in the tournament then you aren't good. That's what you play for. To get to the tournament and to win in the tournament."

Coach totally has a point here. Exhibit A: Why did 13-loss Rutgers make the tournament? It's because they had six quadrant 1 wins. But all of those wins came in conference play, and they had 12 chances! They lost to Lafayette (KenPom 323) at home! Not to mention road losses to Depaul (KP 103), and UMass (KP 185). The committee's inclusion of the Scarlet Knights showed that who you beat matters much more than who you lost to. 

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And because the Big Ten performed well in November and December, every team is thought to be good. There's a chance for a quality win every night. So when they beat up on each other in January and February, everyone's resume gets boosted. 

"The problem with the system is really very simple," said Boeheim. "If you play poorly in the non-conference, like [the ACC] did last year as a league, you're never going to get back. Because you are playing teams that aren't ranked."

I'm not trying to say teams like Purdue, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State, and Ohio State weren't good last year. Of course they were, and if a few shots bounced differently in March some of those teams could easily have made a deep run. 

My issue is the same as Boeheim's - that if your conference plays well at the beginning of the season, it creates this circular feedback loop in league play, inflating the perception of how good each team is.

For the ACC, these resume-boosting opportunities, that were frequent in the Big Ten, were hard to come by. Wake Forest beat National Runner-Up North Carolina by 22, and that didn't count as a Q1 win. The response to that would be that UNC "wasn't good" in the regular season. But they went 15-5 in the league that did the best in the NCAA Tournament!

But you know what was a Q1 win? Wyoming winning at Fresno State, who went 8-9 in the Mountain West. I know I just roasted the Mountain West out of nowhere (who went 0-4 in the tournament), but I'm trying to make a point. How is that a Q1 win and beating UNC by 22 not?

To me there is a clear solution to improving this situation. Each team must play more non-conference games in January and February. It's the best way to gauge the strength of leagues. Because at that point, team's have found their identity and are playing their best basketball. If the goal is to put the best teams in the country in the tournament, how much should the state of the team in November matter, compared to the type of basketball they are playing after the new year?

Example - Oklahoma didn't make the tournament, but they were entrenched on the bubble in March. If they won an extra game in the Big 12 Tournament, they definitely could've been sent to Dayton for the First Four. Oklahoma had an 18-14 record (7-11 in conference play) when they were being discussed as a bubble team. 

The biggest reason they were in the conversation? They beat Arkansas by 22 on Dec. 11. But Arkansas was horrible in December, they lost four of their next five games, including one vs Hofstra! 

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Arkansas hit their stride in January once coach Eric Musselman found the best way to distribute minutes. They won 13 of 14 games in January, and went on to beat Gonzaga in the tournament and reach the Elite Eight.

The system will never be perfect - but to Boeheim's point - the core issue is that November and early December hold too much power over the rest of the regular season. And a step in the right direction would be for more non-conference games to be played later in the season, to make sure the best teams are sent to the tournament. Because at the end of the day, college basketball is all about March.

"You can take that viewpoint that the regular season is more important," said Boeheim. "But you would be wrong."

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