Tuesday, November 27, 2007

What Challenge?


It's that time of year when the Big-11 takes it's annual rented mule-like beat down on national television in the ACC/Big 11 "Challenge." I use quotes because it certainly hasn't been difficult for the ACC. Not only do they hold a 8-0 record in the challenges, they hold a 49-27 overall record in individual games. This year's route started yesterday as Wake cruised at Iowa City. Seriously, for the sake of basketball fans everywhere, can we please have ACC/Big East and Big-11/Big-12 matchups instead? Please?

Below are the matchups and here's one mans predictions of each game. According to him, looks like it will be ACC 9, Big-11 0 in the next few days.

Wake Forest (3-0) at Iowa (4-2)
Georgia Tech (3-2) at Indiana (4-1)
Northwestern (1-3) at Virginia (5-1)
Minnesota (3-0) at Florida State (5-2)
Wisconsin (5-0) at Duke (6-0)
Purdue (3-0) at Clemson (5-0)
North Carolina State (4-1) at Michigan State (4-1)
Boston College (4-0) at Michigan (3-3)
Illinois (4-1) at Maryland (4-2)
North Carolina (5-0) at Ohio State (4-2)
Virginia Tech (2-2) at Penn State (2-3)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow Chip- thanks for the newsflash! The ACC is a good BB conference. Fine work.

Another way to look at it:

From my count 10 Big Ten and 10 ACC schools have made it to the Final Four in last 10 years. Big Ten must not be too big of a slouch then??

Anonymous said...

I see you didn't count the number of championship winners the last 10 years.

Anonymous said...

I'm not arguing the fact that the ACC has more success overall than the Big Ten in BB- I was just putting it in perspective- every year you hear the same old "Big Ten is down" BS from the talking heads. This year will be no different.

Anonymous said...

Train,

Your argument would be quality not quantity then I guess. The fact that the top team in the Big 11 makes it to the final 4 is great but the other 10 teams seem to always blow. Your research staff should look up how many teams have made it to at least the sweet 16 in both conferences over the years. I feel it is safe to say the top half of the ACC is much tougher then that of the Big 11.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure ZERO Big-11 teams made the Sweet 16 in 2006.

Anonymous said...

Just for shits and giggles-

The easiest data set I could find was 1985-2007

62 Sweet 16's for ACC
45 Sweet 16's B11

Over that 22 year span the ACC averaged +.77 per year.

Anonymous said...

How many wins do Marquette teams without Dwyane Wade have in the NCAAs?

Anonymous said...

In the Crean era? Zero.

Before that they were National Champs in 1977, and runner-ups in 1974...sweet 16 in 1993.

That's just off the top of my head.

Anonymous said...

What does MU have to do with this?

ALL TIME POSTSEASON RECORDS
National Catholic Tournament 1 appearance 3-0
NCAA Tournament 24 appearances 32-26
National Invitation Tournament 15 appearances 21-14
TOTALS 40 appearances 56-40