In less than a week, we will have a bracket.
The good news: the best three-and-a-half weeks of the calendar year are within arm’s reach. You can already smell the madness cooking in the conference tournament games that we’ve had the fortune to see go down to the wire and finish in the dramatic manner that only March basketball can deliver.
The bad news: Bubble Watch is almost over.
It flies by so quickly, doesn’t it? This will be the final fully fleshed-out edition of Bauer’s Bubble Watch for 2023. (There will also be a quick update on Thursday or Friday.)
And to be honest, I don’t think we’ve made very much progress in clearing up our bubble. Sure, we’ve locked some teams here and there, but the main goal of Bubble Watch is to focus on the teams on the bubble (it’s right in the name, “Bubble Watch”), and this bubble refuses to provide any kind of clarity. Like, here comes Providence falling down at the end of the season, and, hey, here’s Vanderbilt making a late surge. And all the teams that were already there are still there because none of them have done enough to move up or move out. Too many bubbles are refusing to burst!
If it’s all a big mess, then why write 5,000 words about it in the first place? For the love of the game, of course. Now that’s really what Bubble Watch is all about.
As we jump into this final week of conference tournament play, here’s where our 57 at-large possibilities stand:
- Locks: 32 teams
- Safe for now: 6 teams
- Bubble: 19 teams (for 8 available spots)
One week, folks. That’s all the waiting we’ve got left to do.
ACC
- Locks: Virginia, Miami, Duke
- Safe for now:
- Bubble: NC State, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Clemson
Remember when I said in the first edition of Bauer’s Bubble Watch that the ACC should have more than five bids this year? Yeah, that’s, uh, not going to happen. At least not the way things are shaping up now; the ACC’s adjusted efficiency numbers continue to tumble, and the conference’s best and brightest have been repeatedly stumbling down the stretch. At least one team has its act together, and that’s Duke, winners of six straight and earners of their best road win of the year in Chapel Hill on Saturday. The Blue Devils join Virginia and Miami as the ACC’s trio of locks. After that, it gets pretty ugly.
NC State: NC State is in a bit of an awkward spot. Since ending their regular season with a four-point loss at Duke on Tuesday, the Wolfpack have had to sit back and watch as other bubble teams have pushed them around the seed lines with wins and losses of their own. That’s left NC State hovering somewhere around Last Four In—most likely in the field of 68, but nowhere near comfort. The awkwardness continues this week, as NC State’s first opponent in the ACCT will be Virginia Tech or Notre Dame—a win over either doesn’t move the needle, and a loss to either would be downright unsightly (the Hokies less so). Win that first game and you’re probably OK… probably.
Pittsburgh: It’s a shame that Pitt’s best season in seven years has come when the entire conference has been so fruitless. Much like NC State, the Panthers have fallen from relative safety right into the bubble at the worst possible time by losing the last two (at Miami isn’t so bad, at Notre Dame is a problem). There isn’t a single metric on this team sheet that points to Pitt as a tournament team; it’s three Quad 1 road wins and inspiring victories over Virginia and Miami that are putting in the work. But is it enough? We’ll find out in a week. In the meantime, taking care of Georgia Tech/Florida State in ACCT game number one is of the utmost importance.
North Carolina: With each passing day, it’s looking more and more like the preseason #1 team and last year’s title runner-up will not be making an encore appearance in the big dance. Saturday’s home finale against the hated Blue Devils was the opportunity to finally put some meat on this résumé; the Tar Heels instead shot 5-of-23 from deep to fall victim to the Duke season sweep and remain with a single victory in Quad 1. Unlike NC State and Pitt, who may just need to hold serve, North Carolina has work to do in Greensboro. Avoiding the Boston College/Louisville upset is a necessity. Taking down Virginia is as well. Only then can the Tar Heels have a case, and it still might not be enough.
Clemson: Clemson’s at-large hopes seem pretty far-fetched, but, when you boil it down, this résumé doesn’t look that far removed from Pitt’s—three Quad 1 road wins, metrics mostly in the 50s and 60s, seven wins in Q1 and Q2… the big separator here is that the Tigers possess four Q3/Q4 losses to Pitt’s two and rank about 190 spots worse in non-conference strength of schedule. That’s going to require some make-up work in the conference tourney, where Clemson’s most likely opponents in its first two potential games are NC State and Virginia. Quality abound, but enough to fill in the holes of this team sheet? Remains to be seen.
BIG 12
- Locks: Kansas, Texas, Baylor, Kansas State, Iowa State, TCU
- Safe for now: West Virginia
- Bubble: Oklahoma State
It was warranted to show some concern for Iowa State’s recent slide, as the Cyclones had lost four straight since being named a first-edition lock. Would a team with eight Quad 1 wins and metrics in the 20s really be in danger with a fifth straight defeat to fall to 17-13? Probably not, but you’d feel uneasy about it all the same. Good thing we don’t have to fret anymore after Iowa State blasted Baylor in Waco on the final day of the regular season for arguably the single most surprising result this conference has produced. (Save for a certain 24-point win over Alabama).
West Virginia: An Iowa State loss to Baylor would have put the Cyclones in the same realm as West Virginia: only four or five games above .500, but ultimately feeling pretty safe with good metrics, a bunch of Q1/Q2 wins, and nary a bad loss on the team sheet. Yes, the Mountaineers are back to being firmly in the field after taking down Kansas State on Saturday, their 11th victory against a NET top 100 opponent to rise all the way up to 17th in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency. Though a 1-10 performance in Quad 1A is reason for concern, it’s going to take a lot of mental gymnastics for the committee to leave WVU out at this point. Win that first Big 12 tournament game against Texas Tech, and we’ll make it official.
Oklahoma State: As I posited last week, Saturday’s clash between Oklahoma State and Texas Tech was effectively an elimination game. The Cowboys won, so they’re here, and the Red Raiders are not. That said, it’s still an uphill climb for the Pokes. A first-round Big 12 tournament exit to an Oklahoma team suddenly playing pretty spirited basketball would have OSU at 17-15 overall—that’s not going to garner at-large consideration. Win that game, and maybe you’ve got a case. Beat Texas in the second round… now we’re cooking. The path to a bid still exists, we just need to see more of the Oklahoma State we saw Saturday and less of the Oklahoma State we’d seen in the three weeks prior.
BIG EAST
- Locks: Marquette, Xavier, UConn, Creighton
- Safe for now:
- Bubble: Providence
I came into this weekend assuming that there would be nothing to talk about in the Big East section of Bubble Watch, except for maybe another joke about Georgetown or something of the like. Then one team had to go and make it interesting, like they so often do…
Providence: Providence, what the hell are you doing? For weeks now, I’ve been operating under the assumption that the Friars would eventually do enough to secure their tournament bid with the rest of the Big East bunch above. So then they lose their first home game all season to Xavier on Wednesday. Fair enough, the Musketeers are a really good team, and Providence did just enough in the final two minutes to keep it from being a blowout. That’s fine as long as they clean it up on Saturday… or they can just lose by 24 at home to Seton Hall instead. That’s, uh, not good. This team sheet features a 6-9 Q1/Q2 record, a single road win in the NET top 75, and a NET that has sunk below 50th for the first time this calendar year. This is not the kind of résumé where you can be pulling stunts like that. Ultimately, I have a hard time seeing the Friars fall out of the field entirely, even with a loss to UConn on Thursday, but they have made this situation unnecessarily difficult for themselves in no time at all.
BIG TEN
- Locks: Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern, Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa, Illinois
- Safe for now:
- Bubble: Penn State, Rutgers, Wisconsin, Michigan
Ahhhh, it feels so good when you can lock a whole bunch of teams at once, and this is none more satisfying than in the Big Ten: the ultimate cluster of middle-of-the-road basketball teams. The official additions of Michigan State, Iowa, and Illinois to our lock list brings the Big Ten’s total up to seven, surpassing the Big 12’s previous top mark of six. Of course, knowing the Big Ten, only one or two of those teams will make out of the first weekend… but we’ll have that discussion when we get there.
Penn State: Penn State might actually do this thing. Last Sunday’s squandered lead to Rutgers was as deflating as it gets for a bubble team. But instead of laying down and dying, the Nittany Lions got to work, beating Northwestern at the buzzer in Evanston on Wednesday before doing the same to Maryland in State College on Sunday after overcoming a 13-point halftime deficit. That’s two Quad 1 wins in five days. Other bubble teams haven’t had that many in an entire season. Penn State’s outlook is suddenly looking very solid heading into the Big Ten Tournament. Who’s their first opponent, you ask? Illinois—just some team that Penn State has already beaten twice this season.
Rutgers: Who would have thought that that 19-point comeback would arguably be a more important bubble result for Rutgers than for Penn State? That win is the only thing separating the Scarlet Knights from an 0-4 finish and seven losses in the last eight. The metrics have absolutely plummeted in that time; Rutgers sits at 42nd in KenPom after ranking 16th(!) less than 30 days ago. Yes, the win in West Lafayette is awesome, but it doesn’t entirely make up for three Q3 losses (and another in Q2 teetering on the edge), a bottom-60 non-con SOS, and metrics that have curdled over the course of last month’s sloppy play. Thursday’s Big Ten tourney opener against Michigan may very well be an elimination game.
Wisconsin: The biggest complaint about Wisconsin’s tournament profile is that the metrics loathe the Badgers’ stagnant offense and inefficient style of play. How does Wisconsin respond? By just barely, by the skin of its teeth, eking out a 71-67 victory at the Barn over NET #231 Minnesota. (Ha! That’ll show ’em.) The good news is that a bigger win wouldn’t have improved the Badgers’ metrics much anyway, and the avoidance of a second Q3 loss is reward enough. The bad news is that Wisconsin is 17-13 with those numbers and maybe not enough quality victories to counteract it should things go awry in the postseason. Up next is Ohio State, and the betting lines will likely favor the Buckeyes. Gulp.
Michigan: Last season, Michigan earned an at-large invite with a record of 17-14. Fans did not like that one bit. (Bracketologists almost unanimously predicted them in, for what it’s worth.) They took it and ran with it, advancing their dubious bid all the way to the second weekend. It must be cosmic karma then that this year’s Wolverines have some suffered of the most painful defeats possible, including back-to-back road overtime losses to Illinois and Indiana. Michigan really, really needed to take one of those; now they sit on the outside of the tournament picture and head to Chicago with a record of… huh, 17-14. What goes around comes around, I suppose.
PAC-12
- Locks: UCLA, Arizona
- Safe for now: USC
- Bubble: Arizona State, Oregon
Bubble teams, avert your eyes. The Pac-12 tournament is coming. Two of the last three times these 12 teams have gotten together in Paradise, Nevada, a bid thief has emerged: Oregon in 2019 and Oregon State in 2021. (And both teams made the most of it; those Ducks went to the Sweet Sixteen, and those Beavers advanced all the way to the Elite Eight). With only two teams locked into the field this late into the season, fate is just asking for another rando to pop up out of nowhere and pop someone’s bubble. If one of these teams can just elevate their play to that of UCLA or Arizona for three or four days… anything’s possible.
USC: If there’s one non-lock that bubble teams will be OK with winning the Pac-12 tournament, it’s USC. The Trojans are 90% of the way to lock-dom anyway; all they needed this past weekend to feel secure about their tournament spot was a good fight against Arizona and a win over Arizona State, and they did just that (though the latter proved to be a little trickier than previously thought). A potential Quad 4 loss to Oregon State in the conference quarterfinals is just about the only thing that can keep USC out at this point. That scenario might seem like a long shot, but remember: this is the Pac-12 in MARCH. The unexpected is practically a guarantee.
Arizona State: A 60-foot buzzer beater is the difference between Arizona State possibly being one of the final at-large selections and hardly being in consideration at all. That win in Tucson is going to be the thing that drags the Sun Devils to the finish line, as their road trip to Los Angeles to end the regular season failed to impact their team sheet in a positive way, with Saturday’s narrow loss at USC being especially heartbreaking. They’ll get a second shot at the Trojans, this time on a neutral court (still Quad 1), and it’ll have to go their way… assuming they properly dispose of Oregon State in round one. You shouldn’t make assumptions with the Pac-12.
Oregon: As expected, Oregon finished its regular season with a pair of so-what wins over Cal and Stanford, which doesn’t move the meter at all but at least keeps the Ducks on the very fringe of the bubble entering conference tournament play. It’s also just enough to give Oregon a first-round bye, where it will wait for the victor of Washington State vs. Cal. The Ducks should be pulling hard for the Cougars, who at least provide some sort of quality, being a Q2 opponent on neutral territory. Of course, a victory there is easier said than done; part of the reason the Ducks are down on the bubble in the first place is because Wazzu clipped them in Pullman back in early February. But don’t forget: the Ducks have won the tournament outright thrice since Dana Altman took the wheel. Do they have another run in them?
SEC
- Locks: Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Missouri
- Safe for now: Arkansas, Auburn
- Bubble: Mississippi State, Vanderbilt
There’s passing with flying colors, and there’s doing just enough to scrape by. Both are viable ways to earn entry to the NCAA Tournament. Texas A&M falls into the former; the Aggies overcame an early deficit on Tuesday to beat Ole Miss by a comfortable margin before tallying their biggest win of the season on Saturday in a 67-61 triumph over likely #1 overall seed Alabama. We welcome you to March with a firm handshake! Missouri, meanwhile, falls into the latter; the Tigers have never been a favorite of the efficiency numbers, and they didn’t do themselves any favors last week with back-to-back five-point escapes against LSU and Ole Miss, but they made it to regular season’s end with nine Q1/Q2 wins, no bad losses, and a W at Tennessee for good measure. We welcome you to March with an unenthusiastic pat on the shoulder. (You can’t win ’em all.)
Arkansas: Arkansas is so frustrating to figure out. Like, they’re a good team. You can tell that they’re a good team by watching their games. You can tell that they’re a good team by looking at their NET rank (18th), or how efficient they are (14th in BPI, 19th in KenPom, 23rd in Sagarin). But then you look at their résumé, and you can’t help but be disappointed. A neutral-court win over San Diego State is good. A road win at Kentucky is very good. They challenged themselves in the non-conference, only playing two Quad 4 opponents all year. But… then what? There’s just not a whole lot to love. For that reason, the Razorbacks are probably going to see a huge gap between their eventual tournament seed and the level of play they’re capable of. That could end up spelling disaster for some unsuspecting 1 seed, and you can bet the Hogs would be the trendy pick for an upset if they do land in the 8/9 range. (Y’know, if they can actually pull one of these close games against top teams out.)
Auburn: That sound you hear is the enormous collective sigh of relief from Auburn fans. As documented last week, the Tigers were spiraling toward the bubble in record time following a thrashing at the hands of Kentucky, and after an overtime heartbreaker to Alabama on Wednesday, it looked like the opportunity for a season-saving win had come and gone. But Auburn didn’t waver, fighting off a number of late Tennessee rallies to beat the Volunteers and keep this tournament profile above water. That win is the Tigers’ first in Quad 1A, providing a much-needed data point to back up the metrics that say, ‘Hey, this is a tournament team.’ Auburn’s first-round SEC tournament match with fellow safe-for-now squad Arkansas will matter for postseason seeding, but it’s hard to see any result kicking either one out of the bracket.
Mississippi State: Not an ideal final week for a Mississippi State team that’s been hovering around the at-large cut line for the better part of a month, but not a complete disaster either. Fending off South Carolina on Tuesday keeps the Bulldogs’ team sheet clean in Quad 4, and losing at Vanderbilt is only a minor issue since everyone is doing that these days. The problem is that Mississippi State came into the week searching for safety, and instead, they’re stuck at the same place that they’ve been for ages. Does a résumé that’s 7-10 in Q1/Q2 with a pair of really strong Q1A wins but also a Q3 loss and a poor non-con SOS get to go dancing? It’s a tough call to make. Beat Florida in the SECT on Thursday and we’ll reassess.
Vanderbilt: There’s always one—a team that has no business being on the bubble radar a month out from Selection Sunday, then suddenly surges to the finish in unfathomable fashion. Last year, it was Texas A&M, who missed out on a bid by the skinniest of margins. This year, that honor stays in the SEC with the Vanderbilt Commodores! This team was 10-12 entering February, nowhere close to the discussion, and now, they’re a silly loss at LSU away from being perfect in the time since, tallying victories over Tennessee, Auburn, Kentucky, and Mississippi State. Unfortunately, it may be too little, too late, as their NET rank of 83, prohibitively low metrics, and three Q3/Q4 losses belong to a team on the outside looking in. But these ‘Dores have been as hot as any in the last month. The SEC tournament field should be on red alert.
OTHERS
- Locks: Houston, Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, San Diego State, Florida Atlantic
- Safe for now: Memphis, Boise State
- Bubble: Nevada, Utah State, North Texas, Oral Roberts, Charleston
You love to be able to lock in a team from a traditional one-bid conference; it’s a rare pleasure that only happens once in a blue moon. We get to do that today with Florida Atlantic, who cleaned up its remaining schedule with a 103-74 devouring of Rice and a 76-72 come-from-behind win at Louisiana Tech. Now 15th in NET, 27th in KenPom, owners of a shiny new Q1A win with some help from North Texas, and with no losses below Quad 2, all doubt can be erased—the Owls are going dancing.
(Oh, and adios, New Mexico. The only path to a tournament invite now is the Mountain West automatic bid. Best of luck, Lobos.)
Memphis: Losing your top opportunity for a marquee win at the buzzer certainly stings, but here’s the thing: Memphis didn’t need to beat Houston to keep its tournament case alive. Sure would have been nice, and it would have went a long way toward making the Tigers an official postseason lock, but the selection committee is made up of humans, not computers, and they will not treat taking three 1 seeds (Alabama once, Houston twice) to the wire as ordinary losses. Besides, Memphis already has 10 other Q1/Q2 wins and 30-something predictive metrics—that’s the résumé of a tournament team, top-tier wins or not. Barring a disaster in the conference tourney, Memphis is just fine.
Boise State: The good tends to outweigh the bad when it comes to tournament résumé analysis, and that’s true for Boise State’s results this past week. A win over San Diego State is somewhat of a rite of passage for Mountain West teams, and the Broncos got theirs on Tuesday. Saturday’s 13-point loss in Logan is less enthralling, but the metrics say that that’s not as problematic a result as you might think. The Broncos now head to Vegas with the conference’s #2 seed and a pretty solid team sheet in all areas. Take care of business in game one against UNLV/Air Force, and we’re good to go.
Nevada: Last week, I said that things were on the right path in Reno. All of a sudden, things are no longer on the right path in Reno. That’s what happens when you drop back-to-back Quad 3 games in the span of a week—far-and-away Nevada’s two worst losses of the season, coming at the absolute worst time possible. Three weeks of relative safety down the drain in an instant. Nevada is still on the inside of the bracket in most projections, but only just. Avoiding an early exit in the Mountain West tourney is a must, and that is a challenge in and of itself; those plucky San Jose State Spartans are the Wolf Pack’s first opponent. It could be the swiftest end-of-season death a team has ever suffered if Nevada can’t get its act together.
Utah State: This has to be, without a doubt, the most bipolar at-large résumé I’ve ever seen in my years of bracketology. Following their victory over Boise on Saturday, the Aggies finally have their first Quad 1 win (one that looks like it’s actually going to stay Quad 1), to go with a NET rank of 21, a KenPom of 23, and a KPI of 14. 14! Those are obvious tournament numbers. But one Q1 win? Two Q4 losses? No road victories better than NET 89? Not so much. It’s the classic battle of results versus metrics, and even that’s a little muddy since KPI is technically a results-based metric. Very confusing stuff, just like this résumé. I frankly have no idea whether or not the Aggies would be in the field right now with this profile; there are too many historic precedents that would easily put them in and equally as many historic precedents that would easily keep them out. Just go and win the Mountain West tournament like you always do so we don’t need to have this discussion.
North Texas: If the committee decides it wants to throw a curveball and take a mid-major at-large as opposed to one of the many uninspiring power conference teams, North Texas is right here. Yes, the Mean Green are still as much of a long shot as they were last week since their résumé is so fluffy in the important areas. But just look at results like Saturday’s domination of Western Kentucky, in which UNT held the Hilltoppers to just 33 points in 58 possessions. That’s something a good team does! C’mon, selection committee, whattaya say? Won’t you let the Mean Green in? Pretty please?
Oral Roberts: Kudos to you if you keep reading the Oral Roberts blurb week after week in spite of the fact that the outlook remains unchanged since day one of Bubble Watch. That takes tenacity. So far, so good for the Golden Eagles; they’ve made it to the Summit semifinals, and the only team to which they can suffer a non-devastating loss, South Dakota State, is still alive on the other side of the bracket. But, again (and I cannot stress this enough), you’d be doing every person on the face of the Earth a favor by just winning the Summit tourney outright. Everyone and their mother wants to see ORU blast some unfortunate 5 seed out of the tourney. No one wants that possibility to be up in the air come selection day.
Charleston: Charleston just can’t catch a break. The Cougars did exactly what they were supposed to in their first CAA tournament game, vaporizing Stony Brook into a heaping pile of ash via 74-52 beatdown, so much so that the win probability graph looked like a straight line from tip-off to final whistle, after opening the game on a 22-2 run. As a result, they… fell five spots in KenPom. Sigh. I want to see Charleston in the tournament as much as the next guy, but I’m getting seriously concerned about the possibility of an at-large should the Cougars falter at some point in the next two days. Just erase all doubt and make it official on Tuesday night, for everyone’s sake.
I had the exact same reaction about Providence. Seriously, Providence, can you just be a normal team for once?