Big 12 conference rankings- Sagarin

You are too anti-Big 12 biased to actually be talked to rationally. Which is sad, since this is an argument that has no meaning in any scope of things.

He isn’t anti-Big 12, he is simply more impressed when there were 3-6 really bad teams in the conference and when the top half inflated their records with easy wins. In the 2010s has the Big 12 had a single team finish with single digits wins? Happened all the time in the first 15 years in the league.
 
Thanks for posting these, had been looking for some sort of “respected” measure of conference strength since the mid-90s to better evaluate Kruger’s performance relative to Sampson.
 
I decided to look it up. Here are the teams that finished with less than 10 wins overall in the Big 12 since its inception.

Season is listed by the year in which the season started, so this year is listed as ‘19.

‘96- A&M (9-18)
‘97- A&M (7-20)
‘98- Baylor (6-24)
‘99- A&M (8-20), KSU (9-19)
‘00- Tech (9-19)
‘01- A&M (9-22)
‘02-
‘03- Baylor (8-21), A&M (7-21)
‘04- Baylor (9-19)
‘05- Baylor (4-13)
‘06- CU (7-20)
‘07-
‘08- CU (9-22)
‘09-
‘10-
‘11- Tech (8-23)
‘12-
‘13- TCU (9-22)
‘14-
‘15-
‘16-
‘17-
‘18-
‘19-
 
I guess I should have changed those to correlate with the Sagarin ratings. To do so, add a year to the later list to correlate with the Sagarin list. For example, the Big 12 was ranked the #1 conference according to Sagarin in ‘03, which is ‘02 by the Big 12 standing, which didn’t have a team with a record with less than 10 wins.
 
Computer polls don’t like a conference with a lot of bottom dwellers, even if the top team has feasted on those teams to inflate their overall record.
 
I decided to look it up. Here are the teams that finished with less than 10 wins overall in the Big 12 since its inception.

Season is listed by the year in which the season started, so this year is listed as ‘19.

‘96- A&M (9-18)
‘97- A&M (7-20)
‘98- Baylor (6-24)
‘99- A&M (8-20), KSU (9-19)
‘00- Tech (9-19)
‘01- A&M (9-22)
‘02-
‘03- Baylor (8-21), A&M (7-21)
‘04- Baylor (9-19)
‘05- Baylor (4-13)
‘06- CU (7-20)
‘07-
‘08- CU (9-22)
‘09-
‘10-
‘11- Tech (8-23)
‘12-
‘13- TCU (9-22)
‘14-
‘15-
‘16-
‘17-
‘18-
‘19-

A&M had 8-6 record in the tourney as a BIG12 member. Colorado was 1-2. (Nebraska was 0-1 and Missouri was 11-9). From a tournament perspective they were 20-18 overall.
 
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A&M had 8-6 record in the tourney as a BIG12 member. Colorado was 1-2. (Nebraska was 0-1 and Missouri was 11-9). From a tournament perspective they were 20-18 overall.

From ‘96-03, A&M was a bottom feeder in the conference. They did improve with Gillespie and Turgeon.

A&M won 8 NCAA tourney games as a Big 12 member? I only count 6 wins, which included 1 Sweet 16 Gillespie, which he parlayed into the Kentucky job.
 
From ‘96-03, A&M was a bottom feeder in the conference. They did improve with Gillespie and Turgeon.

A&M won 8 NCAA tourney games as a Big 12 member? I only count 6 wins, which included 1 Sweet 16 Gillespie, which he parlayed into the Kentucky job.


I was mistaken as they were 7-6. They made the tourney 6 years in a row with 5 of those making it to the second round thus they were 5-5 over those appearances and in the other year they lost the regional final making them 2-1 in that season.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/texas-am/
 
I was mistaken as they were 7-6. They made the tourney 6 years in a row with 5 of those making it to the second round thus they were 5-5 over those appearances and in the other year they lost the regional final making them 2-1 in that season.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/texas-am/

Wrong again. In 2011, that was when the NCAA expanded the field so the play-in games were the “first round” so their 2nd round defeat was their first game of the tourney and they lost to FSU to go 0-1 in the tourney that year. They were 6-6 in NCAA tourney games as a member of the Big 12.

And A&M was a bottom-feeder from ‘96-03. Awful basketball program until the turn around.
 
And this has nothing to do with my original point, which was before 2010, the Big 12 quite often had an awful team or two in the league (less than 10 overall wins) and that has rarely happened in the 2010s+.

From ‘96 to ‘09, it happened 13 overall times and from ‘10 to present it has happened twice.
 
Wrong again. In 2011, that was when the NCAA expanded the field so the play-in games were the “first round” so their 2nd round defeat was their first game of the tourney and they lost to FSU to go 0-1 in the tourney that year. They were 6-6 in NCAA tourney games as a member of the Big 12.

And A&M was a bottom-feeder from ‘96-03. Awful basketball program until the turn around.

That is correct.
 
And this has nothing to do with my original point, which was before 2010, the Big 12 quite often had an awful team or two in the league (less than 10 overall wins) and that has rarely happened in the 2010s+.

From ‘96 to ‘09, it happened 13 overall times and from ‘10 to present it has happened twice.

You mentioned a couple of more tourney victories in a post and I brought up tourney records.
 
So what I gather is the good ole days weren’t that good, we just beat up on bad teams. So we were never really a consistent top 25 program we just had inflated records and rankings from playing in a bad conference.
 
He isn’t anti-Big 12, he is simply more impressed when there were 3-6 really bad teams in the conference and when the top half inflated their records with easy wins. In the 2010s has the Big 12 had a single team finish with single digits wins? Happened all the time in the first 15 years in the league.

When were there ever SIX really bad teams in the Big 12?

I don't know why some of you have to make such ridiculously false claims to have a discussion here. Just silly.
 
And this has nothing to do with my original point, which was before 2010, the Big 12 quite often had an awful team or two in the league (less than 10 overall wins) and that has rarely happened in the 2010s+.

From ‘96 to ‘09, it happened 13 overall times and from ‘10 to present it has happened twice.

So having ONE really bad team inflated OU's record and results back then? lol

First, every other team in the conference would have gotten to play them as well. Second, I'm guessing OU's record against aTm during that time was very similar to our record over the last 5-7 years against whatever team ended up finishing dead last in the conference.

Again with the exaggerations about what having a really bad team in the league really means. I know OU was good enough back then to consistently play and beat teams that finished 1/2 in the conference. Whether that was KU, or ISU, or some of those good OSU teams. There were some really good teams that went on multi-year runs back then. REALLY good. That hasn't happened as much in recent years, as seen by KU's dominance in conference, but lack-luster performances in the Dance.

Kelvin was 6-11 against KU.
Capel and Kruger were/are 4-20 against KU.
So I'll say it again, OU was a better team back then, and they competed with the better teams in the conference more than our current teams. Tough to compare our records against bottom teams when back then we weren't a bottom team, and recently, we have been. Of course we're going to lose more to the bottom half teams when we aren't as good. That doesn't mean the league is better, it means we are worse.
 
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So having ONE really bad team inflated OU's record and results back then? lol

First, every other team in the conference would have gotten to play them as well. Second, I'm guessing OU's record against aTm during that time was very similar to our record over the last 5-7 years against whatever team ended up finishing dead last in the conference.

Again with the exaggerations about what having a really bad team in the league really means. I know OU was good enough back then to consistently play and beat teams that finished 1/2 in the conference. Whether that was KU, or ISU, or some of those good OSU teams. There were some really good teams that went on multi-year runs back then. REALLY good. That hasn't happened as much in recent years, as seen by KU's dominance in conference, but lack-luster performances in the Dance.

Kelvin was 6-11 against KU.
Capel and Kruger were/are 4-20 against KU.
So I'll say it again, OU was a better team back then, and they competed with the better teams in the conference more than our current teams. Tough to compare our records against bottom teams when back then we weren't a bottom team, and recently, we have been. Of course we're going to lose more to the bottom half teams when we aren't as good. That doesn't mean the league is better, it means we are worse.

ou is in a much tougher conf now .. they were in the far easier division back then
 
When were there ever SIX really bad teams in the Big 12?

I don't know why some of you have to make such ridiculously false claims to have a discussion here. Just silly.

Unfortunately, USA Today's Sagarin rankings has been cutdown to only have 2000 to present, but here is from a quick search. Any team that has a Sagarin ranking above 75 is a bad team IMO.

2000
Tech- 134 (12-16)
Baylor- 147 (13-15)
KSU- 158 (9-19)
NU- 159 (11-19)
A&M- 192 (8-20)

2001
CU- 82 (14-15)
BU- 90 (17-12...their OOC was a joke)
NU- 92 (13-16)
KSU- 121 (11-18)
Tech- 185 (9-19)
A&M- 193 (10-20)

2002
CU- 87 (14-14)
NU- 116 (13-15)
KSU- 120 (13-16)
BU- 121 (12-16)
ISU- 146 (12-19)
A&M- 197 (8-22)

Too bad I cannot find the '98 season when the Big 12 was the 7th best conference according to Sagarin. But, this year the Big 12 teams had the following overall records.

Baylor 14-14
Mizzou 17-15
Tech 13-14
KSU 17-12
CU 13-14
Texas 14-17
ISU 12-18
A&M 7-20

Are you sure my statement is "ridiculously false" and "silly"?
 
So having ONE really bad team inflated OU's record and results back then? lol

First, every other team in the conference would have gotten to play them as well. Second, I'm guessing OU's record against aTm during that time was very similar to our record over the last 5-7 years against whatever team ended up finishing dead last in the conference.

Again with the exaggerations about what having a really bad team in the league really means. I know OU was good enough back then to consistently play and beat teams that finished 1/2 in the conference. Whether that was KU, or ISU, or some of those good OSU teams. There were some really good teams that went on multi-year runs back then. REALLY good. That hasn't happened as much in recent years, as seen by KU's dominance in conference, but lack-luster performances in the Dance.

Kelvin was 6-11 against KU.
Capel and Kruger were/are 4-20 against KU.
So I'll say it again, OU was a better team back then, and they competed with the better teams in the conference more than our current teams. Tough to compare our records against bottom teams when back then we weren't a bottom team, and recently, we have been. Of course we're going to lose more to the bottom half teams when we aren't as good. That doesn't mean the league is better, it means we are worse.

Sorry, the league was worse in the late '90s and early '00s. Spin it however you want. And no, this team wouldn't compete with Sampson's good teams from the early '00s, but they would compete with his teams from the late '90s.
 
ou is in a much tougher conf now .. they were in the far easier division back then

It is definitely more balanced now, but it has been a competitive conference since the mid 1980s thanks to Wayman Tisdale and Danny Manning. If you're going back 20 years, we pretty much knew that we would start out no worse than 5-1 against TTech, Baylor and aTm...and we only had to play Kansas once. That said, there were a lot of tough games because Eddie Sutton had OSU playing at a higher level than they are playing now. Texas was better 20 years ago as well...those were 4 tough games and we would be happy to win 2 of those. We would also be happy to go 2-2 vs. Kansas, Missouri, ISU and KSU. Nebraska always gave us fits as well, but we'd usually beat Colorado.

Again, it was a tough conference back then. Now, there simply aren't any easy games which you can circle the calendar and say "that's a win". Regardless of conference strength, most of us have had enough of squeaking into the dance. We went through this in the second half of the 90s as well, but couldn't help but get the feeling Kelvin was slowly building us back up (which he did). Most of us aren't getting those same vibes now.
 
I did find the RPI numbers for the '98 season

Baylor 14-14- 92
Mizzou 17-15- 53
Tech 13-14- 101
KSU 17-12- 74
CU 13-14- 114
Texas 14-17- 111
ISU 12-18- 128
A&M 7-20- 235

That is 6 teams with a RPI of 92+ with A&M in the 200s! KSU squeaks in above the threshold with a 74th position.
 
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