Laley23;1411622 wrote:Right. But leveling out the seeds should come first, per that Sheehan guy, on ESPN. I think is more to do with the fact the computer numbers loved NM even though most of us knew that a mid major is still a mid major
Computers help when there is a lot of cross-over play. The more common opponents the better the numbers will be. But the MWC seemed pretty isolated when you looked at their schedules. Hence the inflated numbers.
Before falling into the trap of picking New Mexico to go far this year I went and looked at their schedule and was thoroughly unimpressed. Just briefly glancing at New Mexico's, Colorado Stat'es UNLV's, Boise's and San Diego's schedules again. Each played about 2 games against Pac-10 schools, but not really any good east coast teams. New Mexico is the exception because they also played 2 Big East teams (UConn and Cinci). But those wins really didn't impress me too much either. Also the fact that New Mexico lost a game 55-34 really made it easy to discount the hype.
It just looks like the league racked up a bunch of wins in OOC play without really playing too many good schools, and then beat up on each other in conference. Heck, even the worse teams in that conferece had a great win% for OOC games, but when you click on their schedule, I have absolutely no idea who some of those schools are.
Wyoming played "PAN", who the hell is PAN? ESPN doesn't even have a valid link for that school.
Or Air Force, they played both WCK and REG. I have no f'ing idea who either of those two schools are? There is no link from the schedule screen to a school. If you click on the game info for those games. You can see the names (Regis and Western St.). But once you click on the names there the only recorded games for both those teams are only that game against Air Force. There is no other record for any other games or anything.
Basically the whole conference had a complete joke of an OOC schedule, and by the "bottom teams" essentially being undefeated OOC by playing schools that pretty much are not real in the D1 college basketball landscape, they each had a gaudy record heading into conference play and thus the conference was overrated.
When you have a situation like this, the "numbers" don't tell the whole story.
