#10 Northern Iowa at #11 Wichita State, WINNER TAKE ALL

[PantherSigEp]

I remember uniftw taking an unprovoked shot at WSU for the Showtime deal earlier this month so excuse me for asking for his commentary about this one. Let's not act like UNI fans don't bring up stuff from the past or aren't perfect angels either. Valleychamp likes to hit up 2livewu on a weekly basis. How come nobody whines about that?

Probably because most of us are adults and not middle school girls. Who cares? People can be assholes. Doesn't mean that a person should be an asshole in return, but if they are, so be it. That's their decision and it carries consequences. Let them live with it.

So...

I'm an asshole, huh?

No, I'm just speaking generally. Don't flatter yourself

[mvcfan]

This is interesting. I see this "Winner Take All" thread and after the Shockers take the Championship, most on here are complimentary. Then I visit the POY thread and see a tussle with a bunch of Panther fans that the Shockers didn't really win it. The teams came out equal. I don't understand how they do math at the UNI but in Kansas, we won more games.

[UNIFanSince1983]

The debate is over who is the better team (which is like splitting hairs honestly). Did the Shockers winning on Saturday automatically make them a better team? They performed better in the 18 game conference schedule, but there is more to a season than just that.

I don't think anyone was debating that Wichita won the conference championship. The Shockers are a great team and definitely deserved to win the championship. I am done though because I got sucked into petty arguments that I normally don't. Congrats again to the Shockers and hopefully there is a rubber match in STL!

[mvcfan]

The debate is over who is the better team. Did the Shockers winning on Saturday automatically make them a better team? They performed better in the 18 game conference schedule, but there is more to a season than just that.

I don't think anyone was debating that Wichita won the conference championship.

Look, I'm not saying that the Shockers are head and shoulders above UNI. It's obviously very close. But how else do you determine the better team? Who wins the last game of the year for the Conference Championship or do you just flip a coin? This isn't Rocket Science.

[UNIFanSince1983]

The debate is over who is the better team. Did the Shockers winning on Saturday automatically make them a better team? They performed better in the 18 game conference schedule, but there is more to a season than just that.

I don't think anyone was debating that Wichita won the conference championship.

Look, I'm not saying that the Shockers are head and shoulders above UNI. It's obviously very close. But how else do you determine the better team? Who wins the last game of the year for the Conference Championship or do you just flip a coin? This isn't Rocket Science.

I edited my post. Congratulations and we will see you on Sunday (hopefully)!

[Championz]

Who's the better team, Oklahoma or Kansas State?

[Snaggletooth]

The debate is over who is the better team (which is like splitting hairs honestly). Did the Shockers winning on Saturday automatically make them a better team? They performed better in the 18 game conference schedule, but there is more to a season than just that.

Record: WSU 26-3, UNI 27-3 (EVEN, UNI has 2 extra games against 200+ RPI teams)
Conf: WSU #1 (17-1), UNI (16-2) (Advantage WSU)
RPI: WSU 11, UNI 15 (Slight WSU)
NC SOS: WSU 30, UNI 110 (Advantage WSU)
Top 50: WSU/UNI 2-2 (EVEN)
Top 100: WSU 5-1, UNI 5-0 (Slight UNI, Seton Hall collapse hurts WSU)
Top 200: WSU 8-0, UNI 7-1 (Advantage WSU)
Pomeroy: WSU #10, UNI #14 (Advantage WSU)
Massey: WSU #9, UNI #13 (Advantage WSU)
Sagrin: WSU #15, UNI #26 (Advantage WSU)

[BCPanther]

Both teams lost to Top 10 RPI teams on the road (VCU before Weber injury, Utah), lost to team ~100 in the RPI (GW, UE), lost to each other by 16 and 14.

Seems pretty damn even to me.

[PantherSigEp]

I don't think anyone can really debate who deserved the regular season conference championship. It was an incredibly close race, but UNI dug it's grave when they decided to check out at Evansville early.

Any rational person can understand that this debate extends from watching the 2 head-to-head games. Both of which were largely controlled by the home team, thanks to electric atmospheres. I think it's fair to say that it's still fairly cloudy in regards to who truly has a leg up on the other and hopefully this weekend will be able to tell us more. It would be a tragedy if these two teams aren't playing the rubber match on Sunday. No other team in the conference is really all that close to these two.

[SHOXMVC]

We are all pieces of work. Here we have witnessed one of the greatest rides in the history of this conference. Two of the finest teams in all of college basketball...in a conference, once viewed as the "Valley of Death." No, it's not the powerful conference of long ago, but there is no doubt this season will be remembered by most of us forever.

The ironic part is if the Panther fan base were in Shocker shoes and visa versa, our way of looking at things would be tainted based on the color of our glasses. As a Shocker fan I see two programs, designed differently, but efficient in the end. If our two great programs played 10 games on neutral ground, idk what the outcome would be. Maybe it's split 5/5...maybe one team dominates and wins 7. Sports are so hard to handicap. We live in a data-dominated world, but at the end of the day a sports contest is a bunch of 18-22 year olds trying to execute a game plan.

I just hope the winning fan base come Sunday afternoon doesn't proclaim anything more than being the better team that day. Let's get over ourselves and enjoy what is in front of us...two great programs just trying to win.