Well, the bubble actually had a lot of movement this week without any change. I thought certain teams would be eliminated by certain losses, until every other team seemed to lose or the team that lost picked up a big win later in the week. My previous "locks" haven't changed, with two exceptions (addition of Bama and removal of slumping West Virginia). I do not believe these teams are infallible and not capable of losing their way out of this, however, I suspect that their past results and my expectations for their future will give the Committee enough of a reason to get them in, even if they don't necessarily "deserve" it (looking at you Seton Hall and Cincinnati!). In case you missed it, here they are:
21 bids from the 20 worst conferences (I assume that either Long Beach State or Murray State will probably fail to win their conference tournament but get an at-large bid. I hope the same for Iona and Oral Roberts but do not believe the Committee will seriously consider them as at-large candidates)
A10 (2 bids): Temple and Saint Louis (in spite of a bad loss by St. Louis over the weekend)
ACC (4 bids): Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, and Virginia
Big XII (5 bids): Kansas, Missouri, Baylor, Iowa State, and Kansas State
Big East (7 bids): Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Seton Hall
Big Ten (6 bids): Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Purdue
Conference USA (2 bids): Southern Mississippi and Memphis
Missouri Valley (2 bids): Wichita State and Creighton
Mountain West (3 bids): San Diego State, UNLV, and New Mexico
Pac 12 (1 bid): California
SEC (5 bids): Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Alabama*
West Coast (3 bids): Saint Mary's, Gonzaga, and BYU
*New team to join the "locks"
-West Virginia's 0-2 week, with a blowout loss to ND, puts them back on the bubble. In locking teams in, I have to make some assumptions about future performance and I thought, for sure, WVU would win at least one of those games.
61 bids taken, leaving 7 more to take. The teams on my list of potential at-large candidates are: Xavier, St. Joe's, UMass, Miami, NC State, West Virginia, South Florida, Connecticut, Northwestern, Minnesota, Illinois, Texas, UCF, Colorado State, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and Colorado.
Xavier lost at UMass and beat Richmond: HOLDING
St. Joe's lost to Richmond and beat Temple: BACKPEDDLING
UMass beat Xavier and lost at Dayton: OUT
Miami lost at Maryland and beat FSU: HOLDING
NC State lost to UNC and at Clemson: FALLING
West Virginia lost at ND and to Marquette: BACK ON BUBBLE
South Florida lost at Syracuse and beat Cincinnati: RISING
Connecticut won at Villanova and lost to Syracuse: HOLDING
Northwestern lost to Michigan and won at Penn State: BACKPEDDLING
Minnesota lost to Michigan State and to Indiana: FALLING
Illinois lost at Ohio State and beat Iowa: FALLING
Texas lost to Baylor and won at Texas Tech: FALLING
UCF lost at Rice and beat UTEP: FALLING
Colorado State beat New Mexico and lost at SDSU: HOLDING
Oregon won at Oregon State: CALL IT HOLDING
Arizona beat USC and UCLA: RISING
Washington won at Washington State: CALL IT NOT FALLING
Colorado lost to Stanford and beat California: FALLING, THEN RISING
As you can see, the teams aren't doing a nice job of separating themselves. Connecticut was an OT win at Nova away from falling towards the bottom, South Florida eked out a one-point win over Cincy at home to join the discussion, Texas needed OT to beat Texas Tech. Arizona was the only team from this bunch that won twice last week.
My last 7 teams in right now are: Arizona, Xavier, South Florida, West Virginia, Washington, Texas, and Miami. However, I think ultimately one of the Big East teams, Texas, and Miami will NOT make the tournament. Maybe we'll get "lucky" and see a few upsets in conference tournaments and just get rid of some at-large bids. I don't feel confident moving any of the other bubble teams into the tournament right now. I am guessing that Connecticut probably gets in eventually since they will win their final two games and end up opposite Seton Hall or a tired/thin West Virginia team in their first game of the Big East tourney (i.e. three wins from now UConn makes the field). The Pac 12 Tourney could easily be won by Oregon, Colorado, or UCLA which would take that final bid.
Important Bubble Games this week (chronological order):
Xavier at St. Louis
UCF at Memphis
Ohio State at Northwestern
UNLV at Colorado State
South Florida at Louisville
St. Joe's at St. Bonaventure
Miami at NC State
Michigan at Illinois
Colorado at Oregon
West Virginia at South Florida
Washington at UCLA
Yale at Penn (I personally don't think Harvard gets an at-large for similar reasons that I don't think CSU gets theirs, i.e. lack of quality wins, but bubble teams want to see Yale knock off Penn to give Harvard the auto-bid, just in case)
No comments:
Post a Comment