Ken Pomeroy had an interesting post the other day, comparing the ACC to the Pac-10. Obviously, there are many ways to compare conferences, but one Ken picked was non-conference wins over top-30 (according to Ken’s ratings) teams. The ACC trounced the Pac-10 in that metric 13-5.
Well, today, Ken posted a follow-up to that article based on an email from a Pac-10 fan. That fan pointed out that if you count winning percentages instead of just raw wins, the Pac-10 looks better. The left coasters won 5 of their 8 contests for a 62.5 winning percentage while the ACC won 13 of 22 for 59%.
I give the guy points for the observation, but how about looking (and to be fair, he mentioned this) at just how few difficult games the Pac-10 has played. Eight games for ten teams? And three of those were by UCLA! By contrast, the ACC has played nearly two games per team in the league and eight different ACC schools have registered wins over top-30 opponents. Put another way, the ACC has as many different teams who have earned top-30 wins as the Pac-10 has total contests.
p.s. The ACC also completely trounces the Pac-10 (and every other conference) in overall power ratings, be they Pomeroy’s, the RPI, Sagarin, etc.