Who's better? MCC or Southwestern Conference?

 Braggin' Rights extends beyond just the Missouri side of the river.  Over on the east side of St. Louis is the Southwestern Conference with some of the best teams in Illinois.  Collinsville, O'Fallon, Belleville East and West, East St. Louis, Edwardsville and Alton all have outstanding teams this year and these are all public schools.  Their records might not look great because they eat each other up in conference play.  The league is so balanced, most of the teams end up about 50-50 on wins and losses.

Over on the St. Louis side, the Metro Catholic Conference, with De Smet, Christian Brothers College, Saint Louis U High, Chaminade and Vianney, always has elite basketball teams.  The biggest difference?  The MCC schools are all private boys schools and recruit.  Their records are usually similar to the SW conference.  They beat each other up in conference play and the conference winner is the team with one win over 50-50.

And then you have Vashon in the St. Louis Public School League and Cardinal Ritter, St. Francis Borgia and St. Mary's in the Archdiocesan Athletic Association (or at least St. Mary's used to be until the Archdiocese tried to shut their doors).  Vashon and Ritter's records look less spectacular because they play a bunch of national teams before eating up the local competition.

When you look at the top ten Large or Small school basketball polls for the St. Louis Metro Area (my metro area is defined as within 100 miles of St. Louis), you will find most of the top ten populated by these conferences.

It is no different this year.  Those teams mentioned above are all in Gramp's top ten or fifteen.  

Oh, and did I mention Gramp's ratings have the Webster Groves Statesmen on top of the heap in the Large Schools and the Vashon Wolverines on top of the small school St. Louis Metro ratings?

Now, the Southwestern Conference is the better league, at least for this season.  They just ate up the MCC opponents in games over in Althoff.  It's a topsy-turvy rating for Gramps with all the upsets and splits on home and home games.  The competitiveness of the teams on both sides of the river often makes it difficult to statistically rate any of these teams.

Here's a look at the various conferences on both sides of the river.... The SW, MCC, Suburban West Gold and Red and AAA.  I have indicated their conference strength by averaging all of the team's ratings for each league.  At least for this year, the Southwestern Conference owns bragging rights.  A listing of all large and small schools is below that table.

Here are the Large (population >1000 students) and Small School Metro ratings for schools within 100 miles (or so) of St. Louis.  Private boys schools have been doubled to place them in large school ratings.