{"id":465,"date":"2011-12-28T03:09:29","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T09:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/67.227.157.91\/~kenpom\/wp_blog\/2012-conference-previews-part-3\/"},"modified":"2011-12-28T03:09:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T09:09:29","slug":"2012-conference-previews-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/2012-conference-previews-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 conference previews, part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the third installment of the monte-carlo style conference previews where I simulate each conference\u2019s schedule 10,000 times. If you’re unclear as to what’s happening, check out Monday’s post<\/a>, then look back with fondness on yesterday’s effort<\/a>. Today, we get into the territory where this analysis predicts that the favorite in each conference is barely better than a coin flip to win. <\/p>\n

20. ACC (Predicted champ: North Carolina, 59%)<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that the Tar Heels are the favorite to win the ACC, but it\u2019s a bit surprising that they are just the 13th-strongest favorite in the land. And there\u2019s a 15% chance that the champ is not UNC or Duke. I guess that\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n

North Carolina 5941\nDuke           2691 \nVirginia        682\nFlorida St.     258\nVirginia Tech   248\nN.C. State       72\nGeorgia Tech     51\nMiami FL         50\nClemson           7\n<\/pre>\n
19. CAA (VCU, 58%)<\/b><\/p>\n
After struggling through the first two weeks of the season, the Rams are backing up their Final Four appearance quite well. The story of this list though is Georgia State, picked to finish next-to-last by the CAA media<\/a>. (I, however, had them as only the fourth-worst team in the conference, thank you very much.) Take a bow, Ron Hunter. (And me!)<\/p>\n
VCU           5812\nGeorgia St.   1656\nGeorge Mason  1005\nDrexel         751\nOld Dominion   435\nJames Madison  265\nDelaware        66\nHofstra          4\nNC Wilmington    3\nNortheastern     3\n<\/pre>\n
18. Sun Belt (Middle Tennessee, 55%)<\/b><\/p>\n
The Blue Radiers have away-from-home wins against UCLA and Ole Miss, and while neither win is terribly impressive in itself, both were by fairly convincing margins. Middle Tennessee is legit, but Joe Scott, whose teams have finished last or second-to-last in adjusted tempo<\/a> every season since 2003, has resurrected his career in the land of Tebow. The Pioneers are a legit threat to win the Sun Belt this season.<\/p>\n
Middle Tennessee 5545\nDenver           3879\nFlorida Atlantic  422\nLa. Lafayette      67\nArkansas St.       38\nSouth Alabama      37\nNorth Texas         7\nTroy                4\nWestern Kentucky    2\nArk. Little Rock    1\n<\/pre>\n
17. Mountain West (UNLV, 55%)<\/b><\/p>\n
UNLV has gotten the bulk of the MW publicity, and rightfully so, but New Mexico has been quietly lurking, completely unknown on the national scene for some reason. One of the more unusual statistical flukes in the tempo-free era was Steve Alford leading Iowa to the adjusted defensive efficiency title in 2006. His teams haven\u2019t finished better than 25th<\/a> in any other season since 2003. But this year the Lobos are currently 10th. <\/p>\n
UNLV          5529\nNew Mexico    3208\nSan Diego St.  990\nWyoming        173\nColorado St.    50\nBoise St.       48\nAir Force        2\n<\/pre>\n
16. Great West (Utah Valley, 55%)<\/b><\/p>\n
The Great West is down to six teams, and when there are only ten games on the conference schedule, just about anything can happen. Unless you\u2019re Chicago State. Fun fact: Utah Valley is the only program in the nation that doggedly refuses to reveal its players\u2019 weights. What are you scared of, Wolverines?<\/p>\n
Utah Valley       5488\nNorth Dakota      2781\nTexas Pan American 765\nHouston Baptist    697\nNJIT               265\nChicago St.          4\n<\/pre>\n
15. MAC (Ohio, 54%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Move over Javon McCrea and Zeke Marshall, Ohio is good<\/a>. However, there\u2019s a strong enough mid-section to the MAC that the Bobcats are going to have to work to finish with the best conference record in the league.<\/p>\n
Ohio              5361\nKent St.          1348\nBuffalo           1296\nBall St.           795\nAkron              653\nWestern Michigan   487\nBowling Green       28\nCentral Michigan    25\nMiami OH             6\nToledo               0\n<\/pre>\n
14. Pac-12 (Cal, 53%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Yes, the Pac-12 stinks by power conference standards, but don\u2019t hold that against Cal or Stanford who are good enough to be at-large selections and have met or exceeded pre-season expectations. <\/p>\n
California    5293\nStanford      2371\nArizona       1329\nOregon St.     372\nWashington     368\nWashington St. 195\nUCLA            56\nOregon          12\nUSC              3\nArizona St.      1\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the third installment of the monte-carlo style conference previews where I simulate each conference\u2019s schedule 10,000 times. If you’re unclear as to what’s happening, check out Monday’s post, then look back with fondness on yesterday’s effort. Today, we get into the territory where this analysis predicts that the favorite in each conference is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}