Win-loss standings and bracket advancement aren’t the only ways to evaluate tourney performance, however. In fact, they can be misleading metrics for determining relative conference strength. The problem is that they don’t take into consideration seeding. If one conference is stocked with higher seeds, you’d expect its winning percentage to be better than its rivals. Consider the ACC: the average seed of its tourney entrants is 4.33. That’s more than one-and-a-half seed positions better than the SEC’s 5.85 average seed. No wonder the ACC has a better record. In fact, you could argue that the SEC’s win-loss performance is more impressive than the ACC’s. After all, it has a better winning rate despite lower seeding than the Big Ten (5.20), Big 12 (5.66) and Pac-10 (5.59).

So how do you remove the bias of seeding from tourney performance analysis? You do it with PASE, or “Performance Against Seed Expectations.” PASE compares the total number of wins a conference attains to the number its seeding dictates that it should achieve. PASE is calculated by tallying the positive or negative differences between actual and expected wins at each seed position. The total of these differences is divided by the number of appearances to arrive at an average number of games the conference either over- or underperforms per tourney. For instance, the average top seed wins 3.42 games while the average two seed nets 2.41 wins per dance. If a team appeared in the tourney once as both a top seed and a two seed, its expected win total would be 5.83 games. If it actually won eight games, the conference would’ve “overperformed” by 2.17 games—for a PASE of +1.085—more than one game per tourney above expectations

If we apply PASE analysis to Big Six performance, it doesn’t change which conference comes out on top, but it certainly tightens the race. Here are the PASE values of the Big Six since 1985:

1. ACC: +.160
2. Big East: +.148
3. SEC: +.102
4. Big Ten: -.045
5. Big 12: -.098
6. Pac-10: -.176

The ACC, Big East and SEC all perform above seed expectations. The Big Ten, SEC and Pac-10 all fail to meet the win totals their seed positions indicate they should achieve. The PASE race has actually tightened because the ACC, Big East and SEC have stumbled over the last decade.

That got me to thinking. How would the PASE values of each of the Big Six conferences look if the 24-year modern tourney era were divided into four six-year periods? Would trends emerge that changed our impression of the performance of the ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10? Well, I finished the analysis this evening. Here are the PASE values of each Big Six conference for 1985-1990, 1991-1996, 1997-2002, and 2003 to 2008

ACC: +.363 | +.371 | -.015 | -.130
Big East: +.234 | +.113 | +.100 | +.140
SEC: +.238 | +.529 | -.230 | +.006
Big Ten: -.263 | -.222 | +.221 | +.090
Big 12: -.158 | -.264 | -.094 | +.103
Pac-10: +.589 | -.373 | +.174 | -.093

One look at the bumpy rides of all these numbers is illustration enough that the Big Six conferences haven’t exactly been consistent in their performance for the entire 24 years of the modern tourney era. Consider this: the ACC has owned the best PASE in one six-year period and the worst PASE in another. So has the SEC—in consecutives periods! Meanwhile, the Big East and Big Ten have been slightly more consistent, both winning the PASE race in one six-year period. (In fact, the Big East is the only conference to overachieve in every period.) The Big 12 has operated under the radar, never the best nor worst performer against seed expectations, while the Pac-10 basically bumbled through the first 12 years of the dance.