Sagarin ratings

[Damon'sDaMan]

Jeff Sagarin was on ESPN Radio last night. The interviewer (not sure who - I turned it on halfway through the interview) was talking about how the move of Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East to the ACC would affect the power ratings of each conference.

By adding Miami and VT to the ACC, Sagarin said it weakened the ACC's basketball power ratings and improved the rating of the Big East. Since UM (#110 in Sagarin's final ratings) and VT (154) are bad hoops teams, that's understandable.

He also said that in terms of football, the ACC will jump to second (ahead of SEC, just a hair behind Big 12 - which he said will take a dive this year) and the Big East will tumble. That also is obvious.

What's hard to understand is Sagarin's contention that the Big East is better in hoops and would be better off NOT adding proposed teams like Louisville, etc. Granted, Miami and VT are bad teams. And of course Syracuse is the defending national champion (although they'll nosedive with Carmelo Anthony now a Nugget), and Pitt, BC, Notre Dame and G'Town are decent-if-not-great teams. But there are still some really weak teams in the conference (West Virginia, Rutgers). Wouldn't the average power rating of the conference go up by adding more middle-of-the-pack teams like Louisville, Memphis, etc?

I'm sure Saga-geek has some elaborate formula to figure all this out that requires the use of a NASA-created computer, a sliderule and perhaps an abacus. But I'm no mathematician. Can anyone make this clearer?