Conference comparison from the 2004 NCAA Tournament

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John Fuller (TheMat.com)
03/19/2004


The argument all college season long seems to be which college conference is the best. While the results may change from year-to-year, the dominant conference this season has been the Big XII, and its success has carried over into the NCAA Tournament.    Following are statistics for each conference to view which conferences have been at the top of the list this year, and which have been at the bottom. The conferences are listed in order of the percentage of All-Americans based on that conferences number of qualifiers.    Conference - NCAA finalists/All-Americans/total number of qualifiers (All-American percentage)    1. Big XII - 7/16/36 (.638)  2. Big Ten - 7/19/72 (.361)  3. EIWA - 2/10/39 (.308)  4. MAC - 2/3/18 (.278)  5. ACC - 0/2/15 (.133)  6. PAC-10 - 1/4/41 (.122)  7. West Region - 0/2/23 (.087)  8. EWL - 1/2/37 (.081)  9. CAA - 0/2/25 (.080)  10. East Region - 0/0/11 (.000)  11. Southern Conference - 0/0/13 (.000)    Other notes of interest:    
  • The Big Ten and Big XII meet in the NCAA finals at three weights: 125, 133 and 141
  • The 174-pound final features two Big XII competitors
  • The 197 and 285-pound finals feature two Big Ten competitors
  • The 157 and 184-pound finals are the only two where either a Big Ten or Big XII competitor are not in the match