Sure, PSU and IllinoiS did the Big Ten no favors last night with their awesome display of awesomeness in Champagne (maybe I caused this by bashing women's basketball last week?), but I'm still tired of the Big Ten taking shots from people who should know better.
This morning, Seth Davis was on the Dan Patrick Show and he was first asked about the 38-33 Naismith-esque game between the Kittens and the Illini. His response? Why, to take a shot at the Big Ten in general, of course:
"When I saw that, I wondered if they had gone back to the old rules where you had to have a jump ball at center court after every basket. Although that would have maybe been an improvement in the Big Ten this year."
The hell? Frick you, Seth Davis. You and your haughty, ACC-leaning self. He also went on to talk about how those in "lesser" conferences are sometimes in better position for the tourney because they're not grinding out tough games like those teams "in the ACC and Big East."
One of the things I recently discussed with Boilerdowd was how the mass media don't have any clue WHY the scores are generally lower in the Big Ten. It's not that it's weaker -- it's that our conference does this little thing called DEFENSE.
Did anyone watch Duke-UNC last week? There wasn't any defense in that game. They just ran up and down the court, nobody was even getting their hands up on defense, and when you have two teams full of all-American shooters, well, you KNOW they're going to score. And then -- presto! -- you've got a 90-80 kind of game. It's not rocket science.
Oh, and if you still think (and I know none of you do) the Big Ten is "weak," let's take a look at the conference RPI ratings.
Huh. That's funny. It looks to me -- and I'm no Seth Davis-level genius -- like the Big Ten is ranked the #2 conference... ahead of the Big (L)East and mere thousands of a point behind the ACC.
Do you know how long it took me to do that research? Four seconds. Sure, I'm biased, too, but I don't get paid to be knowledgeable on the subject.