You can now find a conference history page linked on each conference’s page next to the years list. While we tend to speak about the state of the game in terms of averages across Division-I, each league is an ecosystem in itself, with its own long-term norms distinct from the rest of the college hoops world. The Southland plays fast, the Big Ten plays slow, the Summit makes a bunch of shots, the SWAC doesn’t, and the SEC is not the place for those that fear rejection.

Many of these things are nearly constant from season to season but those traits can change over time for various reasons, the most obvious of which is conference membership. Therefore, each membership change is conveniently noted on the history page. If you struggle to remember when Louisiana Monroe left the Southland Conference for the Sun Belt, you now have a handy reference to help you. (It was between the 2006 and 2007 seasons.)

Hopefully it’s understood that when I speak of “history”, I mean since 2002, so it’s not like you can look up who won the 1922 Southern Conference tournament (North Carolina) or what year the University of Chicago left the Big Ten (1946). Someday!

For consistency, I’ve applied the same color-coding to the conference stats as I do to the team version of these stats. However, that’s misleading in the sense that one really shouldn’t make value judgments on these rankings. The Summit League ecosystem is historically one of high points per possession, but the high ranking in efficiency does not make the Summit superior to all other conferences in offensive prowess. Points scored by a good offense could be points allowed by a bad defense. It is some combination of the two, and further analysis is needed to figure out the root cause.

There’s also yearly data on a conference’s home-court record, percentage of close games (decided by three points or less or that go to overtime), and percentage of blowouts (games decided by at least 20 points). The latter two are merely interesting bits of trivia and I assume have no season-to-season correlation. However, home-court record does have some conference-specific attributes.

The Mountain West usually has a good home court record and owns the single-best record in the past 13 seasons when its teams went 43-13 at home in conference play. While the WCC is usually among the poorest, with its home teams having twice posted .500 records over the course of a conference season..

Finally, there is information on which team won the regular season title, conference tournament, and who was the highest ranked team in my ratings. For conferences with divisions, the team with the best conference record is given the regular season title here.