http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8939442/where-big-ten-2012-13-season-ranks-all-time-college-basketball

By Ken Pomeroy | Special to ESPN Insider

One thing that's been missing from this season is a debate over which conference is the strongest. The reason is obvious: There really isn't much of a debate at all. Whether your choice of metrics is the number of teams ranked in the AP poll (the Big Ten leads all conferences with five in the top 20), more antiquated methods (five teams in the top 22 of the RPI), or more sophisticated methods (six teams in the top 13 of my ratings and five of the top 14 in the BPI), there's a consensus that the Big Ten is strong. Even if you prefer to look at the strength of competition from top to bottom, the Big Ten is the undisputed winner.


It's gotten to the point that I truly feel sorry for teams in the middle of the conference. Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa have amassed 20 conference losses between them and are much better than their records indicate. If these teams played in the Mountain West or the ACC, chances are they'd have fewer losses and a little more respect nationally.

Even in this season when the commonly held opinion is that there are no historically great teams, it's interesting to ponder where the top of the Big Ten ranks among the great conferences since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams, and what that might mean for the prospects of its teams in the postseason. As it turns out, there isn't an obvious "greatest conference of all time." This season's Big Ten ranks way up there, but depending on how you judge conference strength, there are a few candidates in recent seasons that are comparable to this season's Big Ten.

One does not need a long memory to recall the 2011 Big East, which sent 11 teams to the tournament, with all but two of them seeded sixth or better. No conference in recent memory was as heralded as the Big East was that season, but just two of the 11 teams saw the second weekend. That elicited accusations that the conference was overrated. When the Connecticut Huskies -- who won just half of their conference games -- won the tournament two weeks later, the conference regained most of its lost reputation. But the Huskies' run also served to illustrate just how difficult it is to take a conference's strength, even at the top, and project it forward into NCAA tournament success.

The 2009 Big East was perhaps even stronger at the top than the 2011 version. It only sent seven teams dancing, but that included an unprecedented three No. 1 seeds in addition to two No. 3 seeds. That group more or less lived up to the billing, as four teams made the Elite Eight and two, UConn and Villanova, broke through to the Final Four. But neither made it to the title game, and the Big East was champion-less in this case.

The ACC has had a couple of good candidates for this discussion as well. Most recently, the 2004 edition sent six of its nine teams to the tournament, each of which was a No. 6 seed or better. That postseason would have to be considered a success for the conference, since two teams made it to the Final Four, but UConn knocked off both Duke and Georgia Tech to lock the ACC out of a title.

The 2003 Big 12 had three teams ranked in the top 10 in both the AP poll and my final power ratings, and those teams -- Oklahoma (No. 1 seed), Texas (No. 1 seed) and Kansas (No. 2 seed) -- were seeded to succeed. Like the 2004 ACC, the Big 12 sent two of those teams to the Final Four only to have a team from outside the conference, the Syracuse Orange, beat them both.

Taking a ride in the way-back machine, the 1986 ACC would get my vote as strongest conference, from top to bottom, of the modern era. It had three teams ranked in the AP top four for three different weeks during the season, and six of its eight teams got tournament bids. The seventh-place team in the conference, a Clemson squad that won three conference games, was rated 30th in the country by Sports-Reference.com's Simple Rating System. Interestingly, only Duke got a No. 1 seed and it was the only team to advance to the Final Four, ultimately losing to Louisville in the national title game.

The '86 ACC stands as the best whether you value strength at the top or a top-to-bottom evaluation, and the '09 Big East's three No. 1 seeds won't be matched this season. But the 2012 Big Ten can hold its own with any of the other conferences mentioned here in terms of strength and quality of its NCAA tournament participants this season.

A Big Ten member has not won a national title since the Michigan State Spartans did so in 2000. Some might view the conference's stature this season as inflated if that streak continues. But as we've seen from the great conferences of the past, it's far from a sure thing that one of its members will win a title. The explanation for this is that only one team can win a title every season and no conference ever has a monopoly on great teams capable of doing so. The Big Ten can offer the Indiana Hoosiers and Michigan Wolverines as legitimate title threats, but other strong teams such as Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin are going to be viewed more as long shots to win it all. And you still have teams like Louisville, Florida, Syracuse and Miami, among others, that have significant chances as well.

One conference I skipped over in this analysis was the only one to ever put three teams in the Final Four: the 1985 Big East. It's another illustrative case, because it was a conference that was not exceptionally strong during the regular season but had the most postseason success of any league to date. Georgetown and St. John's were dominant, both getting No. 1 seeds, but just three other conference members were ranked in the AP top 20 at any point during the regular season. The Hoyas and then-Redmen made it to the Final Four as expected, but it was the improbable run of No. 8-seeded Villanova that was required to make history for a conference that wasn't regarded as the nation's toughest during the regular season.

While the Big Ten is better at the top than the Big East or Big 12 or ACC, those conferences have teams at the top capable of making it to the Final Four. So if the Big Ten doesn't end its title drought, or even if it doesn't send multiple teams to the Final Four, it shouldn't be interpreted that the conference was overrated during the regular season. The odds are probably against the Big Ten sending multiple teams to the Final Four and having a member take home the title. Historically, it's been tough for any conference to do that in a given season.
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