Hubert Davis Hates the Big Ten, No Surprise There

Hubert Davis is a part of ESPN's "Bracketology" team. He's the token black guy on the squad (No offense, but seriously look at everyone else on the team). I don't really like college basketball too much and I don't really watch too much ESPN analysis too much either, but after just watching all of about five minutes of Davis' analysis the past few days, I feel like I have to revert back to GOI's roots and complain.

Yesterday, Hubert Davis was talking about "the eye test" to determine the quality of the teams on the bubble. Everyone else was talking about RPI and Strength of Schedule, you know statistics that help determine how good a team is. But not good ol' Hubert. Nope, he's not going to be persuaded by this "Moneyball" generation of sports. Instead, out of the 32 Division-I divisions that probably have an average of 11 teams, Hubert Davis is going to watch about 352 teams and he's going to rank in his head all of them, especially the top 65!

Then today, the Bracketology crew was discussing the quality of the Big Ten, how many teams the Big Ten should have, whether Penn State, a bubble team, deserves to go and what have you. Of course, being it ESPN, the big Midwest conference, the Big Ten, HAS to get shit on. And the shitter- Hubert Davis. First, he mentions how much the Big Ten sucks. Then he mentions how painful it is to watch Big Ten play. And it is because of these two facts that the Big Ten should get as little teams as possible!

First of all! well ok, Big Ten play is absolutely horrible to watch. He mentioned how team can have the score of 20-20 at the half, and this part is true. I'm a big fan of the Big Ten, but even I can't watch it, even when my team, Illinois, is playing. But that is still no excuse to exclude Big Ten teams because of this! Just because teams play knock out-drag out defense, doesn't mean they should not be in the playoffs! Should we take away the Ravens Superbowl win because there offense couldn't score for shit? Absolutely not. Team should be rewarded and praised that they play defense. In fact, you just can not go far in the tourny WITHOUT playing defense.

Second, THE BIG TEN IS THE SECOND BEST CONFERENCE IN THE FUCKING LEAGUE! I don't know where Davis gets this, but the Big Ten is the #2 conference under the #1 ACC according to RPI. Davis was talking about how the Big Ten sucks, how much better the Big East is and therefore the Big Ten shouldn't send 8 teams. What are you basing this off of? Sure, the very top of the Big East is probably more loaded with UConn, Pitt, and Louisville versus really just Michigan State. But this is not about the top of the conference, it's about the conference as a whole! And just a sidenote: the Big East is not #3 in conference RPI, that's the Big 12. Big East is actually fourth.

Big Ten teams in the top 65 according to RPI:
4) Michigan State
18) Illinois
30) Purdue
35) Ohio St
40) Minnesota
42) Michigan
44) Wisconsin

The Big Ten deserves to send 7 teams. Penn State is #68 according to the RPI and despite wins over the top of the Big Ten: Michigan State, Purdue, and twice over Illinois, they do not deserve to go. It's not because the Big Ten sucks or because Penn State plays quality defense and horrible-looking offense (HUBERT DAVIS!), but because Penn State has a low RPI and because of automatic bids due to conference tournaments. Teams who didn't win in the regular season but won their conference tournament (i.e. USC, Cleveland St) took bids away from teams like Penn State. Seriously, I don't understand how analysts like Hubert David are allowed to spew such nonsense and lies, all the fuck time! Fuck ESPN.