But since he is using the football designator of P5, the Big East was always considered the "6th" conference. That is somewhat my point, though, there are at least 6 "P5" basketball conferences because the Big East is a power conference. There are some who also claim the Atlantic 10 could easily be a power conference.

Regardless, in football type system, there is no way a Gonzaga, Belmont, Dayton, VCU, Wichita State, Memphis, Houston, could be recognized as one of the very top teams in the nation; much less maintain that success. The entire point of not including all conference champions is to keep teams like Boise, UCF, or other teams that manage to go undefeated for a couple of years from maintaining that success or getting a chance at a championship.

One of the real tragedies about last years NCAA tournament is that there was a strong chance for two (or even more) non-power teams to have made the Final Four, between Dayton, Gonzaga, SDSU, BYU, etc.