I believe the thinking is coming from prior tourney seeding, and a little bit from football philosophy. there was a time when no BIG 10 football team, no matter how bad they were, would ever lose to a MAC football team. and then Purdue broke that string.
there was a time when Purdue would NEVE R lose at home regardless of the opponent. and that was true for many other BIG 10 teams. There was a time when BIG 10 teams would NEVE R lose a recruiting battle with teams like Cincy, Butler, Xavier, Creighton or Dayton. if a BIG 10 team showed interest, the recruit was theirs. The state's Player of the year almost always signed with the BIG 10 team of his respective state, except if Duke, UK, UCLA or Kansas called. IU lost a recruiting battle for a elite player to Vandy? Purdue lost Embury in a recruiting battle to who?
there used to be tiers. You still see at least 1 BIG 10 team in the top 10. But there used to be 1-3 BIG 10 teams in the top 10. And the bottom of the BIG 10 would have teams that would go undefeated in their preseason and then win 1-2 games in conference. and what I'm seeing now, is our bottom teams are looking like they'd be bottom teams in lesser conferences.
there was a time if the conversation was raised about Purdue football, that if Purdue were in the MAC for football, it would have a string of championships. but then along came Hazell, and people said we'd be lucky if we went 7-5 as a MAC team. the same is starting to hold true for some BIG 10 basketball teams. the lesser conferences now have teams that could be competitive in the BIG 10, and could actually beat many of our teams.
and to be the best, our best teams need to beat the other conferences' best teams. A quality loss is still ....... a loss. Fore the BIG 10 to maintain its status, and for Purdue to be considered an elite team, both the conference and Purdue needs to beat Louisville, Butler, Villanova and Arizona. if we want that top 10 ranking, we need to win those games against other top teams. and if Purdue expects to receive anything better than a 4 seed, it needs to win at least 3 of those 4 games. the out of conference games carry a lot more weight than the in conference games do.
it's not that the BIG 10 is down. it's just that the rest of NCAA basketball has risen a lot more than the BIG 10 has. if this was a finance course, Purdue would be a cash cow and Wichita St would be a growth stock. By all standards, Wichita St should not be better than Purdue. Facilities, Coach, attendance, money , talent "SHOULD" favor Purdue. To me, if a team like Wichita st is better than Purdue, then yes, it's a down year for both Purdue and the Conference.
