The Year of the Major Conference

According to the upcoming Chinese New Year, 2009 is the Year of the Ox. In college basketball, this year may go down as the Year of the Major Conference. It remains to be seen whether or not this is a good omen for major-conference teams with bovine mascots (45-point Wednesday night loser Colorado would likely say no).

When Selection Sunday comes, the vast majority of at-large bids will go to teams from the BCS conferences. If you follow college basketball, you knew that already. The extent to which that may be true may be unknown by the fan amongst the irrelevant chatter about national rankings and who could be the country's best player.

Although whether he is the country's or the SEC's best means little other than an award at the end of the season, Jodie Meeks' 54-point performance was anything but meaningless. The most dominating college hoops performance this observer has seen since Dwyane Wade's triple-double in the NCAA tournament in 2003 ('Cats fans don't need to be reminded against whom) was not only a start-to-finish shooting and scoring exhibition, but may well end up being the season's turning point in the SEC that has been controlled by Florida or Tennessee the last three years.

Kentucky's SEC may be the one BCS conference that does not have what seems to be a semi-infinite number of potential NCAA bids. Just 10 days ago or so, Arkansas was looked at to be a conference co-favorite with the Vols and 'Cats after dispatching of Texas and Oklahoma in seemingly program-reviving wins with a young team.

Now, the Hogs are 0-3 after a non-competitive loss against Florida and have an inexcusable home defeat against Mississippi State on the ledger. Yet, as previously mentioned this is a young team, and a conference record of 9-7 or better would help to match a precedent of selection that is usually followed by the committee, even in an SEC West that the fifth or sixth-placed team in the ACC, Big Ten, or Big East and maybe the Big 12 could dominate.

Last month, I dismissed the Big Ten as having only three good teams or so. Clearly, I was wrong. There are as many as seven NCAA-caliber teams of the 11, and just about everyone in the conference has lived up to or exceeded expectations to this point, save underwhelming Ohio State, Indiana, and maybe Purdue.

There could also be seven NCAA teams in the ACC, although the bottom rung of potential at-larges seems flimsier that than of the Big Ten. Closer to the realm of the ACC is the Big 12, where only the top two teams in Texas and Oklahoma look very solid for the tournament. Kansas and Missouri will both benefit from playing the Big 12 North teams two times, whereas the teams in the South will go through a gauntlet of home-and-homes with four of the Texas/Oklahoma/Baylor/Oklahoma State/Texas A&M quintet.

Then there's the Big East, which at an absolute bare-minimum scenario in which teams start losing South Florida and DePaul regularly, will get seven. (When have we been able to say that about any conference this early?)

Now let's look at those conference totals from an aggregate standpoint. For the sake of argument, say the Big East gets eight, the ACC and Big Ten six, the Big 12 and Pac-10 five, and the SEC four.

Right there, and with somewhat conservative estimates for all conferences but the Pac-10 (I'm counting on Washington and Cal to keep up their good play and one other team to come out of the middle of the current standings like a USC), 28 of 34 at-large bids are accounted for.

The last four years since the beginning of the 16-team Big East tell us that the conferences whose average basketball expenses are over $2 million a year but not BCS leagues in the A10, Conference USA, and Mountain West will get three at-large bids total. That makes just three at-larges for the other 22 mid-majors, a number which could well be less.

Three years ago, during "The Year of the Mid-Major," the Missouri Valley received three at-large bids on its own, and had two other teams that had a claim for a bid. A team called George Mason also received a bid after losing in the CAA semis. A critical reason why those conferences were able to produce reason multi-bid seasons is the same reason why the West Coast Conference and the Sun Belt were able to get three and two bids, respectively: upper and lower divisions.

A mid-major conference that has 10 or so teams that beat each other up all winter may have an exciting race for the regular-season and an even more exciting conference tournament, but will likely have no at-large bids. In each of the four aforementioned conference seasons, at-large teams were able to take care of their business in the non-conference season, and kept bad losses at a minimum.

Of course, the other way to get a bid without winning a conference tournament from a smaller league is to have such a gaudy record and such good wins that you can simply not be overlooked. Butler did this a couple years ago, and is well on its way to doing it again, if it has to exhaust that option. Cleveland State could have been a contender after its thrilling win at Syracuse that doubled as the best win of any mid-major this year. The Vikings have stumbled big-time in conference play, only going 4-4 in the Horizon.

George Mason could be on that path, as a GMU/VCU/Northeastern upper division of potential quality wins has developed in the CAA. The upper-lower chasm has also developed again in the WCC, where the three teams that made the tournament a year ago are the best in the league early on. Like in 2008, Gonzaga and/or St. Mary's would get any at-larges.

Davidson of course will make the NCAAs one way or another because CBS needs Stephen Curry and ESPN needs to talk about him. Conspiracy (and kidding) aside, the Wildcats have shaken off some early conference-season cobwebs and have the luxury of being in a conference where only one other team in the College of Charleston is more than a game over .500.

Siena has started 8-0 in the MAAC, but one would think that they pretty much need to run the table to make that conference a multi-bid league for the first time in more than a decade. The Valley might not quite need a similar run to get a second team, but its best (and possibly only) at-large contender in Illinois State is currently in third place in the MVC.

Yet, the truth remains that in a year where the BCS conferences are beating each other up in ways that help their RPIs and profiles, all of these teams will have especially limited opportunity should they not win their conference's tournament.