Jerome Tang strongly refutes notion Big 12 has gamed the system on basketball ratings
Jerome Tang has a message for anyone in the college basketball realm who genuinely thinks the Big 12 is an overrated conference filled with teams that boast high rankings solely because they manipulated the NET ratings with clever schedules.
“I believe we will have 10 or 11 teams in the NCAA Tournament or deserve to be in it,” Tang said at a news conference on Thursday. “That’s how good these teams are. I know there have been some people out there who have talked about how we tricked the NET, or whatever. Man, like throw the NET out and come play us.”
The Kansas State basketball coach was just getting started with a rant in response to some comments that were recently made by Clemson coach Brad Brownell.
Earlier this week, Brownell asserted that the Big 12 was getting too much credit for beating bad teams before the start of conference play. In his mind, all those wins were gaming the system in favor of the Big 12. He clearly doesn’t think that is fair to other leagues like the ACC.
“A couple of things that folks don’t understand, you can manipulate the NET,” Brownell said during a radio interview. “And there’s a strength of schedule dynamic where the Big 12 has managed it with their scheduling. Their nonconference scheduling, they’re playing 300 level teams and winning by 40 and 50 points to increase their offensive and defensive efficiency numbers, which is a big part of the NET tool. So that’s why you see teams trying to win at the end of games by 30 or 40 points instead of putting in your walk-ons.
“So the Big 12, they’re playing eight nonconference games, seven nonconference games against low level teams and increasing their NET. Then when they all get into the league, their totals are higher, their NET rankings are higher. And so their teams are perceived to be a little better than they are.”
Brownell went on to point out that the ACC has a 9-3 record against Big 12 teams this season.
Still, the Big 12 has 10 teams ranked inside the top 50 of both the NET and Ken Pomeroy ratings systems. Most numbers suggest that the Big 12 is the strongest basketball conference in the nation.
Tang doesn’t think any of those statistics mean much in the grand scheme of things. After spending most of his coaching career as an assistant at Baylor and then taking over as the head coach at K-State, he has seen up close how hard it is to win in the Big 12.
That is one of the main reasons why he has said all year long that any Big 12 team that finishes with a .500 record (or better) in conference play will end up in the NCAA Tournament.
If coaches from other leagues lived through a Big 12 schedule, Tang doesn’t think they would accuse the Big 12 of manipulating anything.
“Come play in our environments and come play us,” Tang said. “This isn’t about the NET. It’s about the coaches and the players that are on the floor and the environments we have to play in. This thing is a grind. And numbers don’t trick (you) into the Big 12 being the best basketball conference in the country, It’s not about the numbers. It’s about the teams, it’s about the players, it’s about the coaches and it’s about the environments.”