Love These Late Season Non-Conference Battles

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Historically, one of the really difficult aspects of comparing teams across conferences has been that all of the non-conference match-ups were played in November and December. In the early part of the season, teams have not gelled into their final form. Often coaches have not settled on a starting line-up by December. While the players may be playing well, they may not yet play well together as a team in November.

For these reasons, I really like the introduction of these late season inter-conference match-ups that we are seeing this year. This weekend we got to see a scrappy Michigan team play tough with the #1 UConn Huskies. While they did not win the game they reaffirmed that they are a tough team (who beat two #5 rated teams, Duke and UCLA, earlier in the season) and also further strengthened the contention that the Big East and the Big Ten are neck and neck for second best conference (behind the ACC) this year.

We also saw UCLA beat up on Notre Dame, further solidifying the fact that it isn't just the tough Big East line-up that is the problem for Notre Dame, they just are not playing well at this point in the season.

By beating Gonzaga this weekend, Memphis made a statement that they should be considered a Top 25 team despite another horrendously weak schedule again this year.

I hope this is an increasing trend in college hoops. Let's not wait for the NCAA tourney to see how the SEC is going to fare against the Big 12 late in the season, lets get some more of these games on the schedule. There is no reason all of the conference games have to be played back to back, lets mix in 3-4 of the non-conference games later in the season and see how they match-up with a "fully cohesive" line-up.