Paying to Lose

One of the unique quirks of early season college basketball are guarantee games.  A major conference pays one of the couple hundred Division I minnows a tidy sum to come to their arena for a loss.  The little guy gets a guaranteed check (which helps keep the Athletic Department's lights on) and the big boy gets a guaranteed win.  Except, it doesn't always work out that way.  Sometimes the little guy isn't all that bad, or at least not relative to the team whose gym they're visiting, and they come away with both the cash and a notch in their win column.

With so much talk about the B1G's embarrassing non-conference losses, let's look at how all six power conferences did now that we've (mostly) closed the books on the guarantee games for the year.

Big XII (1):
Kansas State (Texas Southern)

The Big XII is sort of the consensus best league in the country right now, at least inasmuch as you get consensus on that.  Seven teams were ranked last week, and they almost escaped this list entirely before a miracle comeback by Texas Southern over the weekend against K-State.

Big East (4):
Providence (Brown), Creighton (North Texas), Marquette (Omaha), Depaul (Lehigh)

The new Big East got a lot of hype early on during as the Thanksgiving tournaments were happening due to strong performances there, but they've fallen off a bit, not so much for losing to the dregs of DI but more for losing to mediocre power conference teams like Georgia or Auburn...or the mere existence of Depaul's basketball program.

SEC (6):
Ole Miss (Charleston Southern, Western Kentucky), Mississippi State (Arkansas State, USC-Upstate), Auburn (Coastal Carolina), Missouri (UMKC)

The SEC has had a basketball conference as weak as its football conference is strong in recent years, but they've made a concerted effort to at least schedule more competitively out of conference.  It's worked.  The SEC has the #1 SOS so far in 2014-15.  Ole Miss is surprising to see on the list, especially with two games to its discredit, as they were thought to be a middle of the pack team, but at least the other three schools on this list were all known to be deep in the rebuilding phase.

PAC-12 (7):
USC (Army, Portland State), Washington (Stony Brook), Arizona State (Lehigh), California (Cal State-Bakersfield), Oregon State (Quinnipiac), Washington State (Idaho)

Rough Sunday night for the Pac-12 with Washington falling from the ranks of the unbeatens against Stony Brook (who came all the way from New York) and Cal dropping one to an in-state school.  For as much as you think the RPI is worth, the Pac-12 is closer to the A10 than any of the other conferences listed here.  That's not entirely due to a few bad losses, but aside from heavy favorite Arizona, only Utah has put itself in really strong position going into conference play.

Big Ten (10):
Michigan State (Texas Southern), Indiana (Eastern Washington), Nebraska (Incarnate Word), Michigan (NJIT, Eastern Michigan), Purdue (Gardner-Webb, North Florida), Rutgers (St Peter's, St Francis PA), Northwestern (Central Michigan)

It's not so much the number of losses in this conference but who lost them.  Indiana had a tumultuous offseason, but Michigan, Michigan State, and Nebraska were all ranked to start the year.  Michigan State will still probably be fine, and Maryland, Minnesota and Illinois looks to fill the second tier vacuum instead of some of the teams above.  The season hasn't been kind in general though, as the B1G is just 5th in the conference RPI rankings and 4th in kenpom's conference ranks - well below where they envisioned themselves this season.

ACC (11):
Miami (Eastern Kentucky, Green Bay), Virginia Tech (Radford, Appalachian State), Clemson (Winthrop, Gardner-Webb), Georgia Tech (USC-Upstate), NC State (Wofford), Wake Forest (Delaware State, Iona), Florida State (Northeastern)

I do revel a little bit in the difference between the ACC's self-proclamations and its reality so far.  No question that Louisville, Duke, and Virginia is an awesome trio, but powers UNC and Syracuse (not pictured above) have been subpar so far and the bottom of the league continues to drag down a very strong top.  Miami fell from the rankings due to its too losses above.  Tough to punish them too much for a loss to Green Bay and Keifer Sykes, but losing by almost 30 at home to Eastern Kentucky is fairly shameful.