Conference Realignment: Mid-Majors and Conference Rankings

Before I can discuss the reasons why I think there is a likely to be a major wave of conference realignment and how I think this could be good news for fans of certain programs, it makes some sense to explain how the conferences stand today.  As I mentioned before, I spent some time putting some data together from a variety of sources to study Division I basketball conferences and I've used that analysis below.  I learned a few things.

Let's explore the concept of the term "mid-major."  It's one you'll have heard if you follow college basketball, and it's thrown around a great deal without much definition.  In reality it's an expression used to represent the "have-nots" of basketball.  The most accepted definition of mid-major is simply the program of any school that does not belong to one of the six BCS (stands Bowl Championship Series and represents the conferences that have automatic bowl appearances in college football), or Power, conferences.  There's a little bit of variability here... Nobody considers Memphis to be a mid-major, despite the fact that they are in the non-BCS Conference USA.  On the other hand, Gonzaga is still considered a mid-major despite competing year after year with the country's top programs.  Strangely enough, there are a handful of teams (Cincinnati and South Florida come to mind) that I think people consider mid-majors, but who are members of power conferences (in this case, the Big East).

I decided I didn't like this simplified definition, and set about looking through conference rankings.  I settled on Ken Pomeroy's ratings... Preferring them over RPI as more accurate, and over Sagarin ratings, because the data was more readily available.  The interesting thing I found was that there were clear demarcations between "levels."  I took Pomeroy's information from 2004-2009 and calculated the average conference rating for each conference over that period.  The interesting observation is that there tend to be very clear gaps between conference groups, so defined that a new group would form every time there was a difference of at least 2 in average ranking between two conferences.  That resulted in the following:

Group (Conference Count) - Conference (Avg. Ranking)
Power Conferences (6) - ACC (1.83), Big East (3.17), SEC (3.67), Big XII (3.83), Pac 10 (4.5), Big 10 (4.5)
High Major Conferences (4) - Mountain West (7.5), Missouri Valley (8.33), C-USA (9.33), A10 (9.83)
Mid Major Conferences (5) - WAC (12), WCC (12.33), Horizon (12.83), MAC (13.83), CAA (14.33)
Low Major Conferences (4) - Big West (17.17), Metro Atlantic (18), Sun Belt (18.5), Summit (19)
Minor Conferences (10) - Southern (20.67), Big Sky (21.83), America East (22.33), Southland (23), Ivy League (24.17), Patriot (24.67), Ohio Valley (24.83), Big South (25.67), Northeast (26.5), Atlantic Sun (26.83)
WTF Conferences (2) - MEAC (30.17), SWAC (30.83)
Unrated Conference (1) - Great West (created just this season)

Regarding the (in)appropriately titled WTF Conferences... I hated to be rude but the MEAC and the SWAC finished either last or second to last EVERY year of this study.  I don't really understand why people agitate for contraction in college basketball... More teams don't really hurt anyone, but these two conferences are very bad and maybe it should be considered as they never compete.  That being said they're both comprised entirely of HBCU's so that may be deemed insensitive or politically incorrect.