When you watch analysts fill out their NCAA tournament brackets, you normally see them pick a conference tournament winner in their brackets. How can you blame them? These teams are entering the tournament playing their best basketball of the season, and we all just got to watch them play winning basketball in a tournament setting.
Because of that, I wanted to find out whether there’s an advantage to power conference teams winning their tournament, or if some added adversity and rest are better when trying to win in March?
I looked at results from the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and Pac-12 tournaments since 2015 to see if I could find any trends within each conference and across the power conferences as a whole.
Over those 10 years, only four conference tournament champions have gone on to win the national championship, with half of those wins coming in the last two seasons. With the prevalence of NIL, I think we will see more conference tournament champions win in March Madness.
Another statistic that stood out was the number of first-round exits. Of the 59 teams examined, 15 exited in the first round of the tournament. Those 15 were fairly evenly distributed among the conferences, with each conference winner having at least 2 first-round exits since 2015, and the ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12 each having 3.
The Big 12 has the highest average success over the last decade. They only have two first-round exits and three final four appearances out of their conference tournament winners. The Big East follows closely behind the Big 12, but their conference is far more volatile.
UConn and Villanova have half of the four championships on this list, which helps the average finish for the Big East, but they have a median finish in the round of 32, whereas the Big 12’s median finish falls between the Sweet 16 and Elite 8.
The biggest shock on this list was the disappointing finishes from ACC tournament winners. The ACC had the second-lowest average finish for conference winners, zero national champions, and a tie for the most first-round exits. For a conference that’s won three national championships over the analyzed period, it’s shocking to see such a small amount of success from the teams that won the ACC tournaments.
Below are the conferences ranked in total final fours, and average finishes.
Final Fours:
1. Big East: 3 Final Fours, 2 Champions
2. Big 12: 3 Final Fours, 1 Champion
T3. ACC: 3 Final Fours, 0 Champions
T3. Big Ten: 3 Final Fours, 0 Champions
5. SEC: 2 Final Fours, 1 Champion
PAC-12: 0 Final Fours
Average Finishes:
- Big 12
- Big East
- Big 10
- SEC
- ACC
- PAC-12
My biggest takeaway from looking into these teams is not to put too much weight on how a team finishes its conference tournament.
What makes March Madness the best sporting event on the planet is the volatility. Teams can get hot for one game or one month, and you shouldn’t put too much pressure on a team to win its conference. The college basketball season is a marathon, not a spring. Pick the team that’s been the best for the longest period of time, not the one that’s just getting hot at the right time.
