Two big upsets early in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, one on each side as Oklahoma dominated Alabama start to finish and won 93-69, and Missouri took care of Iowa State. Which upset scored more "points" for their conference?
I'd have to say the Big 12 came out on top. While Missouri's win over a surging Iowa State was big, the Cyclones were only favored by a few points and arguably are an "average" Big Twelve team. Missouri is an average to slightly below average SEC team. On the other hand, Oklahoma might be the 9th place team out of 10 in the Big 12, so for them to beat the one of the top two SEC teams so convincingly is a much bigger deal.
What it really shows is how important home court can be in inter-conference play. It's possible for Missouri to beat Iowa State and Oklahoma to beat Alabama on the road, but by a combined 41 points? That only happens playing at home. Sometimes during conference play the familiarity of the teams and venues evens things up a bit, and home court advantage starts to dwindle (it's down to 3.19 points this year from 3.88 points a month ago). But inter-conference games like this tend to be decided more by who is playing at home.
Home court didn't help LSU, however as they lost the battle of the Losing Streaks to Texas Tech. The Red Raiders broke their 8-game losing streak in Big 12 play and extended the Tigers' streak to 8 with a 76-68 win in Baton Rouge. I think this should be considered the tiebreaker if the conferences end up tied in the Challenge.
Both Alabama and Iowa State are in the hunt for a 1-seed, and while these losses hurt them they can bounce back. Alabama might fall to a 2-seed in our next projection, while Iowa State was briefly a 1-seed and had already fallen to a 2-seed. No matter what, Alabama is still a strong 1-seed candidate while the Cyclones are among six Big 12 teams with a legitimate shot at a top seed after the dust settles from the regular season dogfight and conference tournament.
What about the winners? Missouri was among the First Four Out in the Dance Chance and this big win can only help boost them into the seedings. Oklahoma's odds were looking pretty slim lately (around 4.3%) and while a huge win like this is a huge thing, they're still just 12-9 and 8 of their remaining 10 foes are in the top 25 in Strength. They're still going to have a tough time finishing above .500 and will probably need a very strong conference tournament to get an at-large bid.
If they play like they did against Alabama, though, they could win the conference tournament and not need a bid.
Regardless of which conference comes out on top, the winners are the fans. It's a cliché but it's true, this is giving Saturday a March Madness feels to it. There should be three inter-conference weekends every year, with the SEC, Big 12, Big 10, ACC, Big East, and Pac-12 involved in rotation matchups, and they shouldn't be pre-conference either. Having them during conference play breaks up the monotony of seeing the same typical matchups for months.
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