The ACC: Better Than the Big East

With just a few weeks left until conference tournaments, the ACC, not the preseason favored Big East, is the premier conference in college basketball.  I know it's a bold statement, but it's true.  I know my opinion is biased, but it's still true.

Criticized early in the season for being a top-heavy conference without much competition beyond the top four teams, the ACC has shown itself to be just as deep and more competitive than its northern counterpart.  

Top 25 Teams

Both the Big East and The ACC have five teams ranked in the Top 25.  While the Big East's big five have a higher average ranking than the ACC's, the ACC has managed to match the Big East in Top 25 teams despite having four fewer teams in its conference.

That means roughly 30 percent of the Big East's teams are ranked compared to 40 percent of the ACC's teams.  Even if Florida State (currently ranked 25th and 23rd in the nation depending on poll) drops out of the Top 25 after its loss to Boston College on Tuesday, the ACC will still have a higher percentage of ranked teams.

Conference Ratings

At this point in the season, you can almost close the books on the RPI ratings, and the ACC has the edge over the Big East when it comes to RPI.  The ACC has the highest RPI rating in the nation, while the Big East is third, behind the Big Ten (ouch).

Conference Competition

There are many who would say that the Big East is more competitive when it comes to conference play than the ACC, citing the sheer number of competitive teams in the conference.

The problem, however, with that argument, is that the Big East is too big for its own good, leading to rare repeat matchups between top teams.  And while it's one thing to play top-tier conference opponents once, it's an entirely different thing, and infinitely more difficult, to play them twice.

So while Connecticut will play Pittsburgh twice this season, they will only play Marquette, Villanova, and Louisville (three of the top five teams in the conference) once.  Louisville, currently second in the Big East, will only play the other four top Big East teams once this season, with only one of those games (Villanova) away from home.

The ACC is a different story, with nearly all the top teams playing each other twice. Duke plays North Carolina, Wake Forest, and Florida State twice.  

Wake Forest plays Duke, Clemson, and Boston College twice.  The same goes for all the ACC teams and, at least in my opinion, it's tougher to play the #5 team in the nation twice than to play the No. 1 team in the nation once.

Expectations and Performance

Early in the season, the Big East had nine teams ranked in the Top 25.  

Right now, the conference will be lucky to get seven teams into the tournament, and it might get fewer if Georgetown and Notre Dame continue their downward spirals.  To only get seven teams into the tournament when nine of your teams have been ranked in the Top 25 is, to put it lightly, disappointing.

That trend means one of two things:  either the Big East has underperformed or it was heavily overrated at the beginning of the season.

The ACC currently has more ranked teams than it did at the beginning of the year.

It's likely that seven of its teams are secure for a bid in the tournament, and if Maryland (currently in the tournament according to Joe Lunardi's Bracketology) gets a win against either Duke or Wake Forest in the next few weeks, consider them a lock for a bid in March. The ACC could have eight teams (two-thirds of the conference's total teams) in the tournament.

That trend means one of two things:  either the ACC has over-performed or it was seriously underrated at the beginning of the season.

Real bragging rights are achieved in March and a lot can happen in two weeks.  But, with the season almost over, it looks like the ACC, not the Big East, has the edge as the best conference in college basketball.