{"id":466,"date":"2011-12-27T02:04:06","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T08:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/67.227.157.91\/~kenpom\/wp_blog\/2012-conference-previews-part-2\/"},"modified":"2011-12-27T02:04:06","modified_gmt":"2011-12-27T08:04:06","slug":"2012-conference-previews-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/2012-conference-previews-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 conference previews, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the second of five installments where I run 10,000 simulations of each conference\u2019s schedule to get a sense for which teams have a viable shot at winning their conference\u2019s regular-season title. For those late to the party, see yesterday\u2019s post<\/a>, where we learned not to hand over the Big West\u2019s NIT auto-bid to Long Beach State just yet. In today\u2019s edition, we see that the AP\u2019s #4 team is also the fourth choice to win its conference\u2019s title and that a team that won at Cincinnati has the fifth-best chance of winning the Big South.<\/p>\n

26. Big Ten (Predicted champ: Wisconsin, 66%)<\/b><\/p>\n

We shall never speak of this again.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin   6628\nOhio St.    2651\nIndiana      549\nMichigan St.  93\nPurdue        73\nMichigan       3\nMinnesota      2\nIllinois       0\nNebraska       0\n<\/pre>\n
25. Patriot (Lehigh, 63%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Lehigh hasn\u2019t lost by double digits all season despite a schedule that has included road games against Michigan State, Wagner, and Iowa State and a style that packs over 70 possessions into the average game. <\/p>\n
Lehigh      6308\nBucknell    3343\nHoly Cross   193\nAmerican      99\nLafayette     51\nArmy           5\nColgate        0 \n<\/pre>\n
24. Atlantic-10 (Saint Louis, 62%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Xavier’s recent collapse has made a mess of predicting the A-10, but for the purposes of this analysis it has boosted Saint Louis\u2019s chances significantly. Each of the Billikens\u2019 11 wins has been by double-digits. After an eight-year hiatus, Rick Majerus makes a return to the Pit in Albuquerque on New Year\u2019s Eve in what should be a tight, low-scoring game that will be worth watching before you head out to the evening’s festivities. <\/p>\n
St. Louis      6238\nTemple         1825\nXavier          754\nSaint Joseph's  344\nLa Salle        332\nSt. Bonaventure 248\nDayton          106\nRichmond         88\nDuquesne         29\nUMass            17\nCharlotte        16\nG. Washington     2\n<\/pre>\n
23. Big South (UNC Asheville, 62%)<\/b><\/p>\n
UNC Asheville has but three wins against D-I competition, but they\u2019ve been competitive against difficult opposition in their losses. This is all the more impressive considering they have one of the shortest teams in the nation, regularly putting a unit on the floor with nobody taller than 6-5.<\/p>\n
NC Asheville     6181\nCh. Southern     1349\nCoastal Carolina 1253\nCampbell          767\nPresbyterian      223\nWinthrop          135\nHigh Point         50\nGardner Webb       31\nLiberty             7\nVMI                 5\n<\/pre>\n
22. SoCon (Davidson, 61%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Nearly 97% of the SoCon simulations ended with a league title for either Davidson or College of Charleston, and while I’m wary of ultra-high percentages the deal with events involving multiple teams over multiple games, this doesn’t seem like an exaggeration. In the past eight days, the Wildcats have a semi-road win against Kansas<\/a>, and the Cougars were winning at Louisville<\/a> heading into the final media timeout. These two teams are a little different than the rest of the SoCon.<\/p>\n
Davidson         6116\nC. of Charleston 3556\nElon              132\nWestern Carolina  107\nWofford            41\nAppalachian St.    24\nFurman             15\nGeorgia Southern    7\nChattanooga         2\nSamford             0\n<\/pre>\n
21. Big East (Syracuse, 61%)<\/b><\/p>\n
Somehow, the Orange lead the nation in steal percentage and are second in block percentage and yet their defense isn\u2019t dominant. (Partial explanation: anemic defensive rebounding.) The Orange have been consistently fantastic on offense, though, scoring at least a point per possession in all but one game. They get one additional game against the five Big East bottom dwellers compared to Marquette giving them a little more room for error in this analysis. <\/p>\n
Syracuse     6077\nMarquette    1209\nGeorgetown    984\nLouisville    805\nConnecticut   544\nWest Virginia 231\nPittsburgh     57\nCincinnati     43\nSeton Hall     34\nVillanova      13\nNotre Dame      4\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welcome to the second of five installments where I run 10,000 simulations of each conference\u2019s schedule to get a sense for which teams have a viable shot at winning their conference\u2019s regular-season title. For those late to the party, see yesterday\u2019s post, where we learned not to hand over the Big West\u2019s NIT auto-bid to […]<\/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\/466"}],"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=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}