Hello, friends. Welcome back to Bauer’s Bubble Watch.
(Aaaaahhh, it feels so good to say that again!)
Yes, the long wait is over. Football season is now a relic of the distant past, and the greater collective sports focus has turned its attention to the hardwood, just in time for the homestretch of college basketball season.
In a little less than a month, we’ll be learning which teams will be chosen to play in the greatest postseason tournament of all: the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament—more widely known, of course, as March Madness.
It is, in my (un)professional opinion, unquestionably the greatest sporting time of year. And what better to celebrate than with the return of Bauer’s Bubble Watch?
I assume the majority of you reading this column are familiar with what Bubble Watch is, but for those who have no idea what I’m going on about, here’s the gist of it:
The NCAA Tournament bracket has room for 68 total teams. Of these 68 available spots, 32 will be handed to the teams that come out on top in their conference’s postseason tournament (one for each of the 32 conferences), while the remaining 36 are handed out ‘at-large’; i.e. the 36 teams with the best remaining résumés for inclusion.
Bubble Watch analyzes the cases for each team in the at-large hunt that will hope to fall back on the strength of their team sheet should they falter in their conference tourney. As per usual, we’ll split these teams, sorted conference-by-conference, into three different groups:
- Lock: Teams with the “lock” designation have nothing to worry about; they can say with 100% certainty that they will playing in the NCAA Tournament come selection day… so long as they don’t pull something completely preposterous like losing every remaining game on their schedule. (This has never happened in the history of Bauer’s Bubble Watch!) Once a team is a lock, it’s a lock for good. No take-backsies!
- Safe: Teams labeled “safe” are in good shape now. They would practically be guaranteed to make the tournament field should it be revealed today. But there’s still time for them to screw it up, so they’ve got work to do before they can join the locks above.
- Bubble: Finally, there’s the category we’re most concerned with: the “bubble.” (It’s right in the name, “Bauer’s Bubble Watch,” after all.) Bubble teams are either just on the inside of the tournament field’s at-large cut line or just on the outside. There’s no guarantee that they’d be dancing if the selection committee put together its bracket right now. (For 2024, I’m going to be fairly strict on what constitutes a bubble team, for the sake of saving some words. If a team doesn’t have a reasonable argument at the present moment to slot within, at minimum, the first four teams outside the field, they won’t get a write-up until they do just that.)
Every team’s goal, of course, is to work their way up the ladder to that golden “lock” status. Many teams will do this. Others will see their bubbles popped in heartbreaking fashion. And that’s what we’re here to track.
So, strap in, everybody! We’re diving head-first into these at-large outlooks. Here’s how the categorial breakdown looks for Week 1 of Bauer’s Bubble Watch:
- Lock: 16 teams
- Safe: 19 teams
- Bubble: 20 teams (for 12 available spots)
Let’s get a-bubblin’.
ACC
The national media has harped on it perhaps one (or twelve) too many times, but it is disappointing to see the current state of the ACC. This was a league that, in its heyday of not-so-long ago, was almost a shoe-in to get seven or eight bids per year. But these past three seasons have been rough out on the Atlantic Coast, which currently places fifth among the Power Six conferences in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency—just a half-point ahead of the soon-to-be-deceased Pac-12. I guess that’s a consequence of Florida State’s sudden sharp decline, or Notre Dame’s rebuild, or Louisville taking a multi-year break from being a competitive basketball team, but it’s just sad to see this league struggling to get more than four teams into the Madness in current year. We pine for the good ol’ days.
At least some things never change, like the two combatants of college basketball’s greatest rivalry remaining the cream of the crop in this conference. North Carolina has all but erased the memory of 2023’s letdown, as this year’s Tar Heels squad tracks as a top-10 team in the land by nearly every metric. Some recent shocking defeats to the likes of Georgia Tech and Syracuse have kept off the Heels from reaching 1 seed consideration for the time being, but they’ve still got time to get there. Unlike a year ago, making the big dance is the least of UNC’s worries.
Then there’s arch-rival Duke, which is not quite in the same tier of college hoops royalty (as evidenced by their 9-point defeat in the Dean Dome a little while back) but remains a very, very good team. Yes, those oddball losses to Pitt, Georgia Tech, and Arkansas (before we knew the Hogs were bad) are enough to raise an eyebrow, but that’s about the only point of concern for a team sitting at 5-2 in Quad 1 with predictive numbers just shy of the top 10. The Blue Devils will be dancing in 2024.
But beyond the clear-cut top two, the ACC section is a bit underwhelming.
- Lock: North Carolina, Duke
- Safe: Clemson
- Bubble: Virginia, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh
Clemson: Thank goodness Clemson has a pretty strong résumé because there are not many people who think of the Tigers as a high-caliber team. Certainly not after Clemson looked like it was headed down the exact same path as a year ago, i.e. the ‘get off to a blistering start in the non-con, only to completely fold against the ACC and miss the tournament altogether’ path. It sure looked like that was the course of action after an 11-1 record to open the season was swiftly cut down to the tune of a 4-6 start in conference play with an embarrassing home loss to NET #141 Georgia Tech baked in. But tournament cases are not based on the eye test. They’re based on what the teams have actually gone and done out on the court, and the Tigers’ two enormous road victories over Alabama and North Carolina (just their second ever win in Chapel Hill) are perhaps the two best such results that any team in America possesses, bolstering a profile that still sits in the top 30 in every metric that the team sheet supports. These Tigers may smell funny, but their at-large profile is surprisingly strong.
Virginia: Case in point to the ACC’s perceived weakness: Virginia, a March regular in recent times, is now 20-7 overall. And yet, the Cavaliers sit firmly on the bubble. Turns out it’s not a good idea to win your games by razor-thin margins (as Virginia’s low-possession style of play lends itself to) while also getting completely blown off the floor in all your losses. This weekend’s results are the perfect microcosm of the Cavs’ season, as they’ve too often smothered their own impressive feats, like a 2-point win over fellow at-large onlooker Wake, with a 34-point curb-stomping at the hand of rival Virginia Tech, a team just clinging to eventual at-large consideration. It’s not a great formula to earn a bid! Even after that eight-game winning streak that saw them slowly ascend the KenPom ranks, the Hoos are right back to where they started, in the mid-60s efficiency-wise, with those two blowout losses to Pitt and VT. Virginia should still be in the projected field for now, but they’ve got to figure it out before more formidable opponents like UNC and Duke appear on the schedule in the coming weeks.
Wake Forest: You’ve got to feel bad for Wake Forest. This season has been nothing but a relentless tease, over and over again. The Demon Deacons, seeking their first bid in seven years, have played respectable basketball (i.e., beating who you’re supposed to and not getting blown out), to the point that the KenPoms and BPIs of the world place the Deacs in the top 30, alongside the likes of near-lock Clemson. Problem is, those numbers only go so far. The wins you produce on the court are what matter most. And while Clemson has those out-of-this-world victories over Alabama and UNC, Wake Forest has nothing in the same stratosphere, with a Nov. 29 home win over Florida serving as Wake’s only offering in Quad 1 (and only just barely). Time and time again, they’ve had their chances for a résumé-transforming victory—at Duke, at Virginia, at North Carolina, etc.—only to come up short every single time. They’ve got three remaining Q1 chances (vs. Duke, at Virginia Tech, vs. Clemson), all of which loom very large.
Pittsburgh: Wait a second—Pitt!? Pitt‘s on the bubble? You better believe it. Alongside the five already listed above, we’ve had a handful of ACC teams, namely Virginia Tech, Miami and Syracuse, that have flirted with the bubble every now and then, but no team has really gone out of its way to establish itself as the league’s true No. 6 contender. Until these Pittsburgh Panthers suddenly made it interesting. You just have to stroke your chin at some of the things on their team sheet, like the wins at Duke and Virginia, and the predictive metrics now situated in the top 50, and a wildly impressive 6-2 record on the road (how’d they manage that!?). But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here; this is also a résumé with more losses in Quad 3 than wins in Quad 2, and no one should be glossing over that absolutely horrendous 347th-ranked non-conference schedule, in which only one opponent registers above Q3 (Florida, a game that Pitt lost by 15). That’s still a pretty daunting hill to climb. But, if this sudden five-game hot streak is any indication, the Panthers may still have some life in them left.
BIG 12
Welcome to the Big 12. This is Division I’s powerhouse conference, where challengers come to die under the immense top-to-bottom strength of this league, now the cachet of college hoops three years running. Many people anticipated that the Big 12’s four newcomers would not be up to snuff with the almighty challenge ahead of themselves, and perhaps the Big 12’s overall strength would suffer as a consequence.
Turns out, those people were dead wrong. The four new additions have sustained and arguably thrived in their new league, with three of the newbies fully inside the at-large picture, and the fourth, UCF, while not a candidate currently, still playing admirably in year one of the jump. (How many groups in a given year get to knock off Kansas of all teams?)
No one should be surprised about Houston, though. The Cougars, fresh off a 1 seed in 2023, returned Jamal Shead and other important pieces whilst picking up LJ Cryer from the transfer portal to remain the nation’s single most efficient team (and most brutalizing defensive team) for a second-straight season, tougher conference and all.
The Coogs are a first-edition lock, joined by perennial powerhouse Kansas, in line to earn its 22nd consecutive protected seed behind one of the best starting fives in the nation while healthy (glad to see Kevin McCullar back), Baylor, a recent tournament regular that appears to have saddled into its typical elite offensive production after a little rough patch in late January, and Iowa State, a completely revitalized program, back from the pits of hell of a 2-22 season just three years ago, now chasing the heights of a 3 seed or better last seen in the late Fred Hoiberg days of the mid-2010s. Take a bow, T.J. Otzelberger.
That’s four locks in Week 1 of Bauer’s Bubble Watch for the Big 12, but we’re not even remotely closed to finished here. Six more teams (maybe seven, if Kansas State can get its act together) still have a shot at at-large glory. We haven’t seen a conference receive double-digit bids since the original Big East did so back in 2011. Can the Big 12 pull it off?
- Lock: Houston, Kansas, Baylor, Iowa State
- Safe: BYU, Texas Tech, TCU, Oklahoma, Texas
- Bubble: Cincinnati
BYU: Everyone knew that the Houston Cougars would be a-OK in the transition. Not everyone believed that these Cougars would fare nearly as well. What’s especially groovy is how their style of play has translated in the physical, body-bumpin’ league that is the Big 12. BYU chooses to abstain from that body-bumpin’ stuff (heh) and instead just chucks everything up from the perimeter, ranking 4th in the nation via Torvik. A consequence of that is that the Cougars don’t get to the free-throw line very often; they’re 356th overall (seventh-to-last) in that department. Those opportunities could have been helpful in some of BYU’s last-minute losses to Cincinnati and Houston, but, hey, when you’ve got so much confidence shooting from the floor in the first place, who needs free throws? Threes are worth more points, dummy! Ultimately, you would like to see BYU do a little better outside of their home in the mountains (just 2-5 on the road), but so long as their top-20 efficiency numbers hold up, they’ll be making their return to the March in the range of a healthy 5 or 6 seed.
Texas Tech: I don’t think even the most diehard of pistol-totin’, tortilla-chompin’ Red Raider fans would have anticipated year one of the Grant McCasland project to go this well. What’s especially remarkable is how smooth the transition has been away from McCasland’s forte at North Texas: suffocating defense played a snail’s pace. That may have been the same MO for Tech back in the Chris Beard days, but it’s all about the offense now, and, boy, has it worked—the Red Raiders rank 13th in offensive efficiency, casually dropping 85+ on some of DI’s better teams (Villanova, Butler, BYU, Oklahoma, etc.). No result has better symbolized the program’s reinvigoration than last Monday’s 79-50 destruction of Kansas, a result that tallied the rare ‘100’ in Bart Torvik’s Game Score metric, and a firm declaration that TTU appears to be here to stay in 2024. With the Red Raiders favored in each of their remaining six contests, it shouldn’t be long until the lock officially lands in Lubbock.
TCU: So this is a recurring issue with most of these Big 12 profiles, but TCU is really where it’s worth bringing up: the Big 12 didn’t schedule worth a damn in non-conference. Everywhere you look in this league, you find some of the worst NCSOS’s that Division I has to offer: BYU is 287th, Texas Tech 304th, Iowa State 318th, et cetera, et cetera. The Horned Frogs are the worst offender, ranking 327th in out-of-conference contests. It’s like every team in the league saw Kansas State grab a 3 seed last year with a sub-300 non-con and said, “Alright, bet; we’ll just blow out a bunch of scrubs in November and December to build up our metrics, then we’ll beat each other up in January and February to get our quality wins.” And it’s worked. I’m not so sure that’s good for the future of college basketball going forward, but it is good for a team like TCU, which has the necessary wins over Houston, Baylor and Texas Tech to cover up the fact that their best result beyond the Big 12 is a Dec. 16 victory over NET #135 Arizona State. Just stick to the plan, Horned Frogs, and you’ll be fine.
Oklahoma: Sooners fan have waited patiently for Porter Moser to bring the same March magic to Norman that he did for years at mid-major darling Loyola Chicago. That appears to be on track in 2024, though Oklahoma is still a far cry from being one of the Big 12’s premier programs like it was in the early Lon Kruger days (the 6-7 conference record and uncompetitive losses at Kansas and Baylor are evidence of that). That said, there’s still a lot to like about OU’s profile: NET top-10 wins over Iowa State and BYU, all metrics sitting inside the top 40, and nary a bad loss in sight. It is a ferocious schedule ahead, with at Iowa State, vs. Houston, and at Texas all on the remaining docket, but a routine, Oklahoma-esque 2-3 or 3-2 performance down the stretch should have the Sooners feeling fine as they pack their bags for Kansas City.
Texas: Horns up! Or Horns down. Or Horns up again! Or Horns down again…(?) Yeah, it’s been an up-and-down season in Austin. Following a rather uninspiring non-con in late 2023, the Longhorns seem to be content with an alternating win-loss-win-loss pattern in 2024. That’s probably an OK way to get an eventual NCAAT bid in a powerhouse Big 12, but it’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to see from a team that had top-25 preseason expectations and reached the Elite Eight a year ago. Like, Texas is probably in good shape with predictive numbers in the top 30 and four Quad 1A wins (more than any team not named UConn, Kansas or Purdue), but then you also see that they’re 5-8 in Q1/Q2 overall with résumé metrics closer to Bubbleville, and you just feel very mixed about the whole thing. The Lone Star State is supposed to be campy and flashy and ridiculous, not a bore. Do something to inspire me, Texas!
Cincinnati: The Bearcats may be on the bubble, but I’m penciling them in as the Big 12’s most pleasant surprise. You would think that Cincinnati would be due for a harsh dose of reality in this punishing conference, one year removed from treading water in the weaker American, where they finished 11-7 in conference play en route to a run-of-the-mill NIT bid. But the Bearcats have battled, taking road contests from BYU, UCF, and even longtime stalwart Texas Tech to stay right in the thick of this thing. They’re likely on the outside looking in right now with a 5-8 Q1/Q2 record and yet another non-conference schedule mark dipping into the 300s, but they’ve still got three huge chances outside of Fifth Third Arena ahead (at TCU, at Houston, at Oklahoma) to rectify those wrongs. What a world it would be if three of the conference’s four greenies were to reach the big dance in year one. Guess this Big 12 thing that you guys were making a big deal about ain’t so hard to figure out after all!
BIG EAST
Call the Big 12 the best conference all you want. When it comes to pure entertainment value, they’ve got nothin’ on the Big East.
The on-court product, of course, is extremely entertaining in its own right, but the Big East really spices things up once you take to Twitter. I’ll leave out specific names, but the irony is not lost on me that a bunch of rabid fandoms whose entire livelihoods seem to revolve solely around their team are all eager and willing to endlessly wage war with each other on social media, all in the name of their Catholic school of choice. Deus vult!
But getting back to the basketball itself—dang, the Big East produces some fun games. That’s what happens when nine of the league’s 11 teams are, at minimum, respectable squads, ranging from college basketball’s absolute best, to teams like St. John’s and Xavier just beyond the bubble’s periphery, to the creamy, gooey middle, where four groups possess the bubbliest of bubbly résumés possible, separated by mere morsels when it comes to understanding their place in the tournament picture. It’ll be a suspenseful final month to see how it all plays out.
But before we get there, let’s hand out some locks. UConn appears to be on a mission, as the defending champions somehow look even better now than they did when they were decimating teams left and right last March en route to the title. And unlike last year’s Huskies that suffered a swoon in conference play, this pack has been as surefire as they come, with a loss at Seton Hall on opening night serving as the only slip-up. Title defense is never an easy task, but this team is as good a choice as any to do it.
And despite Saturday’s no-show in Storrs, Marquette still belongs among the college hoops elite. Before their 81-53 loss to a UConn squad playing out of its mind, the Golden Eagles had won eight straight, displaying every bit of confidence a team that ranks top-15 nationally in every measure should have. This one setback won’t derail their season; not with a chance at revenge on their schedule come March 6.
The last of the locks is Creighton, a team that hasn’t quite lived up to its lofty Final Four-type preseason expectations (perhaps due in large part to their inability to get to the foul line or generate turnovers) but still ranks among the best of the best metric-wise and has the results (7-4 record in road games, 11 total Q1/Q2 victories) to back it up.
That’s likely to be it for the Big East locks for a long while. Get out the scissors, ’cause we’ve got some hairs to split down in bubble land.
- Lock: UConn, Marquette, Creighton
- Safe:
- Bubble: Seton Hall, Butler, Providence, Villanova
Seton Hall: Seton Hall is the perfect example of why context matters when you’re evaluating these tournament résumés, especially the ones down near the bubble. After the Pirates’ comeback victory at St. John’s on Sunday, I saw many a media personality on Twitter spouting something to the ilk of, “It’s impossible for anyone to have Seton Hall out! They’ve got five Quad 1 wins! They have to be in!” And while I do agree that the Pirates are likely on the inside of the field at the moment, those five Quad 1 wins need context. All five of those wins have come against Big East opponents, with a 241st-ranked NCSOS yielding a single non-con victory (NET 148 Missouri) above Q4. They also don’t completely shield the Pirates’ two Quad 3 losses, or results metrics (KPI 57, SOR 41) in very bubbly territory, or quality metrics (BPI 71, KenPom 59) in even bubblier territory. It’s a fairly tepid team sheet all things considered, even if that “5” in the Q1 wins column looks really nice. The Pirates have put themselves in a good spot, but they still need to perform against a brutal schedule ahead (vs. Butler, at Creighton, at UConn, vs. Villanova, vs. DePaul) before we can talk about any semblance of certainty.
Butler: All of Butler nation must share a reserved anxious excitement about the future of their beloved Bulldogs. The Thad Matta experiment is running ahead of schedule, as this ragtag collection of transfers from every corner of the country has somehow put itself in a decent spot to give the Bulldogs their first NCAAT bid since 2018. It’s enormous upset victories at Creighton and Marquette, alongside underrated non-con triumphs over Texas Tech and Boise State, that have Butler on the cusp. But sometimes the rawness of this new group rears its ugly head; we’ve seen it twice now with a 1-5 stretch at the turn of the new year and now a 1-3 stretch since Feb. 6, in which only a controversial home win over Providence has kept the Bulldogs on the right side of the cut line. It’s a fine line between excitement and inexperience that Butler must walk the rest of the way; a positive result at Villanova on Tuesday evening would be a good place to start.
Providence: Death, taxes, and Providence being utterly ridiculous. Whether it’s erasing garbage Quad 3/4 losses in November with insane February surges (2020), repeatedly winning game after game in the most metrically unconvincing way possible (2022), or flirting with disaster right in front of the finish line (2023), the Friars always seem to produce the single most bewildering tournament case year after year. That streak appeared to be in jeopardy after do-it-all guy Bryce Hopkins went down the for the season on Jan. 3, sending Providence down a four-game spiral that seemed to all but sink their at-large hopes. But I’ve got to hand it to you, guys. You’ve found a way to make it interesting again. Since that skid, the Friars have gone 6-3, with just enough quality (wins at Seton Hall, vs. Creighton in OT) to make you say, “Hey, this team might be pretty good after all,” and just enough mediocrity (18-point loss at Villanova) to make you question your sanity. (How do they do it with such consistency?) In any case, the Friars’ profile lands right where you would expect: smack-dab in the middle of the bubble, either just inside the tournament field or just outside of it, with one month to go. We hope the Friars’ wild ride never ends.
Villanova: Villanova just doesn’t feel like Villanova anymore. Heck, they really haven’t ever since Jay Wright’s stunning retirement following the Wildcats’ 2022 Final Four run. I do suppose a bubble appearance this season is a better result than never once being seriously considered a year ago, but it’s such a fall from grace from the heights this program achieved in the last decade just the same. Villanova should not be getting swept by St. John’s or struggling to score on a laughably bad final possession at Xavier! We’ve at least seen tiny glimpses of classic Nova in spurts across ’23-24 (a win at Creighton here, a Battle 4 Atlantis victory over North Carolina there) but not often enough to lift the Wildcats past a 14-11 overall record and a bubble spot on the outside looking in. Perhaps these past two victories over Seton Hall and Georgetown are a sign of better days to come, but I’ve got my doubts.
BIG TEN
While the ACC’s decline in recent years has been extremely well-documented, the Big Ten’s sudden slip in 2024 has gone a bit under the radar. After all, the Big Ten sports just as many (or as few) at large contenders in 2024—six—as the ACC. Why the difference in public perception?
Perhaps it’s because the strength of the conference from top to bottom still clearly favors the Big Ten over the ACC; the former places a comfortable third in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency, nearly three full points ahead of the latter. The major difference, of course, lies within the ACC’s decrepitude at the bottom of the league, where stinkers like Louisville and Notre Dame are free to roam. The Big Ten doesn’t have a hollow end like that. What it does have is a whole lotta mediocre. Apart from 8-18 Michigan, the bottom of the Big Ten is rife with teams sitting right around .500, floating in the Q2/Q3 wastelands of 75th to 100th in the NET rankings; we’re talking about the Minnesotas, Penn States, Rutgerses, and Indianas of the world. They’re not contenders themselves, but they sure can cause headaches for the league’s actual contenders on a given night when they feel up to the task.
It’s a lot of mediocrity swimming about in the Big Ten this year, but the same cannot be said of Purdue, which—make all the jokes about their history of early tournament exits you want—possesses far-and-away the top team sheet in land. The Boilermakers’ surprising loss to Ohio State on Sunday seems to have thrown that idea into question, but I’ll break it down for you: Purdue ranks first in SOR and KPI. They’re second in NET and BPI, third in KenPom; second in overall strength of schedule and eighth in non-conference SOS. They’re 9-3 in Quad 1 and 7-0 in Quad 1A, with all but one of those victories coming outside of West Lafayette, many of them over teams (Arizona, Alabama, Tennessee, Marquette) vying for a 2 seed or better. They are so, so much more than Zach Edey’s height. Don’t underestimate them because of the past.
Purdue is the creme-de-la-creme of the Big Ten, and there isn’t a close second, but Illinois has got a pretty darn good squad, too. A so-so start to conference play has been erased with seven victories in the last nine (the only two defeats being nail-biters in the opposing gyms of fellow tournament likelies Northwestern and Michigan State) to soar to a top-16 spot in every single metric at the time of writing. The only reason to have any concern for the Illini is due to their deficiency of victories on the highest end (0-4 in Quad 1A), but it’s not enough to sully an otherwise good-looking team sheet.
Now it’s onto the rest of the Big Ten blurb, which, in years past, tended to produce the highest word count of any section in Bauer’s Bubble Watch. Not so in 2024.
- Lock: Purdue, Illinois
- Safe: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Northwestern
- Bubble: Nebraska
Wisconsin: Ya know, a late start for Bubble Watch isn’t always a bad thing. Allowing more time for the at-large picture to blossom can help to prevent you from making a costly mistake, like locking a team too early. It’s a nerve-wracking experience to declare someone an absolute certainty for March, only to watch them completely fall apart down the stretch. Well, curious enough, that appears to be the preferred course of action for Wisconsin. It’s been all downhill since the Badgers’ 16-point halftime lead at Nebraska on Feb. 1 and impending talks about Greg Gard’s squad potentially reaching the 1 seed line, only to blow it in Lincoln (eh, it happens), then lose at home to Purdue (that’s OK, Purdue is really good), then lose at listless Michigan (uh oh), then get eviscerated at Rutgers (someone please plug Wisconsin back in), and then finally fall in overtime at Iowa. Feb. 13’s 8-point win over Ohio State is the only thing separating the Badgers from a winless February. Fortunately, three months of good work prior to this collapse has kept the sky from falling completely, and Wisconsin is still in line for a respectable 5 seed… so long as these struggles don’t snowball into March. Then we’d have a problem.
Michigan State: You just knew that this Michigan State team was too talented to stay lost in the woods forever. It was only a little over a month ago, right around the time that MSU took an ugly loss in Evanston to fall to 9-6 and 1-3 in Big Ten play, that rumblings of this year’s Spartans being the first to miss the Madness since 1997 really came to a head. Pssh. Forget that. How does an 8-2 record since Jan. 14 to reach the top 20 in NET, top 30 in SOR, and top 15 in KenPom sound? Sounds like the Tom Izzo Spartans of years past, right? Right. Long-gone talks of bubble danger have turned into projections somewhere along the 6 or 7 line, and even if the Spartans’ 3-7 record in Quad 1 does leave a little more to be desired on the upper end, those projections are deserved. Trust me, you don’t want to be the unfortunate 2 or 3 seed that gets these guys stuck in your pod. Marquette learned that lesson the hard way last March.
Northwestern: Back-to-back tournament appearances for Northwestern? In this economy? It took the Wildcats nearly 80 years to make it the first time; now it looks like they could turn it into a regular habit. Much credit must go to Chris Collins and the patience that the athletic department showed him during the multi-year rebuild, as Northwestern is now at a juncture where it can beat teams like Purdue and Illinois with some sort of regularity. Impressive stuff. Of course, it’s not all good, or Northwestern would be up with those aforementioned teams in lock heaven instead of down in “safe” territory. You’ve got the whole 329th-ranked non-con strength of schedule business to worry about, plus that Dec. 13 home loss to Chicago State—maybe the single worst pock mark any at-large-worthy team has on its team sheet—plus the fact that none of their standout wins have come outside of Welsh-Ryan Arena. But Boo Buie and company have still done enough good to outweigh those extremely negative negatives thus far. It really is a new era of hoops in Evanston.
Nebraska: The Nebrasketball breakthrough is so close you can feel it. For the first time in a decade, it feels like the Cornhuskers have a living, breathing chance at the big dance, and, thus, an opportunity to amend their undesirable status of being the only P6 team to never win an NCAA Tournament game. This very well may be the year that that futility ends… if only Nebraska can get out of its own way. For what it’s worth, the Huskers look like one of the greatest teams ever assembled when playing on the hardwood of Pinnacle Bank Arena, where they’ve taken down Purdue, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Northwestern this year, in addition to routine destructions of lesser Big Ten opponents. Unfortunately, the NCAA Tournament is not played in Lincoln, and the Huskers have seriously struggled to produce the same results anywhere else, save for an extremely fateful 62-46 victory at Kansas State in December. Without that result, they’d be batting a perfect .000 on the road: not the kind of thing you want to show the selection committee when you also presented yourself no challenge in the non-con (324th overall). It may very well be these remaining road contests (Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan) that determine Nebrasketball’s postseason fate.
MOUNTAIN WEST
The Mountain West is the Mountain Best! It’s a wonderful feeling when one of the non-P6 conferences does enough to separate itself from the rest of the mid-major crowd and earn its own Bauer’s Bubble Watch section, and the 2024 MWC has done just that, sporting six teams (over half the league!) with a shot at an at-large bid. As a resident of the Mountain Time Zone for the last two-and-a-half years, I must say that the sports schedule is an extremely underrated aspect of living out here; no more do I need to cut into my sleep schedule in order to catch all these awesome Mountain West games. And that’s a good thing, because the Mountain West rarely disappoints.
As such, I’ll be on official #6BidMWC watch all Bubble Watch season long, as the league looks to eclipse its modern selection record of five from 2013. We can already pack, seal, and ship one of those bids with 2023 national runner-up San Diego State, a group that saw five of its key seniors from last year’s title run depart the program, only to retool with the same brand of stingy defense that the Steve Fisher/Brian Dutcher Aztecs have become iconic for the last two decades.
They’re a tough out for anyone in this conference every single night, but perhaps they’ll share a little bit of the love in hopes of squeezing all six of these teams into the dance. You gotta think about the greater good here, Aztecs!
- Lock: San Diego State
- Safe: Colorado State, Utah State, New Mexico
- Bubble: Boise State, Nevada
Colorado State: You remember about a month ago when I did that whole big write-up on why ESPN’s BPI is a bad statistic and why it should be removed from the selection committee’s team sheets? No? Well, here’s the link to that in case you’re curious. For years, the BPI has severely underrated the strength of the Mountain West (click the link above to find out why!), and Colorado State must be the best example this season. Even though the predictive metric KenPom and the résumé metrics KPI and SOR measure different things, they all agree that the Rams are one of the 20 to 40 best teams in college hoops, placing 20th in KPI, 28th in KenPom, and 37th in SOR. Pretty good consistency! Then there’s BPI, the fourth team-sheet-official metric, which has CSU all the way down at 68th. 68th! You can’t seriously tell me that there are 67 better teams in Division I—not when Conference Player of the Year candidate Isaiah Stevens is leading this group to victories over Creighton, San Diego State, Colorado, New Mexico and more night in and night out. 68th. Puh-lease.
Utah State: What is it with Utah State and home-run coaching hires? This is three in a row now that the Aggies have knocked out of the park. It starts with 2019 pickup Craig Smith, who would have taken USU to three straight NCAA Tournaments had it not been for COVID, resulting in him getting poached by in-state rival Utah. So Utah State says, “that’s fine,” goes and gets Ryan Odom of 16-seed UMBC fame, and gets back to the dance two years later. Then Odom heads back East to lead VCU, so the Aggies pivot and scoop up Danny Sprinkle from Montana State, fresh off back-to-back Big Sky tournament titles, and he has them primed to make a return trip, perhaps at their highest seed ever. We’ve figured it out, folks; the coaching fountain of youth is located in Logan! Of course, the Aggies still haven’t won a tournament game since 2001, so there’s work to be done in that department. But so long as they take care of business down the stretch (clean up their three remaining Q3/Q4 games and perhaps take one of two against SDSU or UNM), they’ll get their chance to correct that postseason inefficacy.
New Mexico: So you want watch some of that never-disappoints Mountain West Mountain Best fun that I’m raving about, huh? Well, have I got the thing for you. Just sit right down in front of that TV set and turn on some New Mexico basketball. This might just be the single most fun team in the land, as Richard Pitino’s Lobos play a dynamic, invigorating brand of hoops, putting last year’s late collapse well into the rearview mirror, by getting up and down the floor at a lightning tempo, more often putting up 80 or 90 on the scoreboard than not. And when you’re lucky enough to catch these guys playing at home in The Pit… it’s an atmosphere unmatched across the rest of mid-major basketball. The team sheet isn’t quite as electric as the team, still lacking a Q1A win or a second victory outside of Albuquerque above Q3, but it’s in a good enough spot where the Mountain West’s most energetic team should be able to hold serve the rest of the way and take their dynamo style with them into March Madness.
Boise State: Part of the reason why the Mountain West is on #6BidMWC watch this season is because of the willingness these schools seem to have to allow other teams to build their résumés against them. Before the Jan. 16 clash with UNLV, ExtraMile Arena was considered a fortress of solitude; no team not named Boise State had won there in 22 tries, the longest such streak in the nation. But the Rebels did the impossible… and then Utah State did it too just two weeks later. So much for defending home court, but it’s all good! That’s because Nevada and New Mexico were willing to let the Broncos come to their own venues and leave with the W. The selection committee loves those true road wins, you know. You see what kind of magic we can make happen when we all cooperate? Anyway, Boise State’s in a good spot for a bubble team, closer to being safe than they are to the cut line. Better safety should be assured against the upcoming schedule of San Jose State, Wyoming, and Air Force: all teams that the Broncos should be beating.
Nevada: Are you Wolf Pack fans ready to go through the same heart-attack-inducing homestretch that you experienced last year too? No? Too bad! Nevada was a bubble regular all of 2023, looking like it was finally ready to steer to safety with a pair of late-February victories to reach 21-7 overall, only to absolutely implode over their final three games and just barely sneak into the NCAA Tournament as the final team in. Welp, that bubble infatuation is already due for an encore, as most projections put the Pack somewhere around Last Four Byes or Last Four In. (Oh, joy!) I do think the good outweighs the bad, though; a 5-4 record in Q1 and 5-3 product on the road (with two of those wins coming in Q1) should be enough to a counteract very middling metrics, a poor non-con SOS (259th) and an ugly Q3 loss to Wyoming. But you don’t have to test fate, guys! Just take care of business so we can get this #6BidMWC thing wrapped up.
PAC-12
The Mountain West certainly deserves its own section. It’s highly questionable as to whether or not the Pac-12 deserves the same honor.
Sadly, the good ol’ days of staying up ’til midnight to watch Bill Walton rant about volcanos overtop of ridiculous comebacks and buzzer beaters are soon to be a fading memory with the Pac-12 as we know it combusting later this year in the name of cold hard cash. Perhaps it’s only fitting then that the basketball product has combusted too, leaving us with just four, maybe five teams (pending Oregon’s finish) that have a realistic shot at March Madness in 2024. (UCLA is not one of these teams, but I am keeping my eye on the Bruins, winners of eight of the last 10. The Pac-12 tournament sounds like an exciting opportunity.)
Arizona is the only one of these teams truly worth their salt, as the Wildcats have brushed aside some early winter head-scratchers to ride their NET #3 profile, complete with top-10 metrics and seven separate victories against the top quadrant, to a projected NCAA Tournament 1 seed. There was a time when it looked like the Wildcats were gearing up for first-round disappointment two seasons in a row. With back-to-back annihilations of Colorado and Arizona State as their most recent results, I wouldn’t bet on it now.
There’s a dearth of quality elsewhere in the Pac-12’s swan song season, but there is at least one other group worth showing some excitement for.
- Lock: Arizona
- Safe: Washington State
- Bubble: Utah, Colorado
Washington State: Ol’ Crimson flies again! How about your 2024 Washington State Cougars? Aside from DePaul, no Power Six team has waited longer for a return invitation to the big dance, with Wazzu making its most recent appearance in 2008. (Some guy named “Tony Bennett” was running the show back then.) But after consecutive NIT appearances each of the past two seasons, the Cougs finally look ready to make the long-awaited leap back into the Madness. It’s not a guarantee yet, as the Cougars still have a grotesque 302nd-ranked NCSOS and single Q1A victory to deal with. But they’ve put themselves in a great spot with an 8-5 Q1/Q2 record, an impressive 5-3 performance in road contests, and, of course, their victory over Arizona from Jan. 13—the Pac-12 equivalent of the ultimate trump card. Just don’t screw it up over the final month, and we’re good to go! (Please, please don’t screw it up!)
Utah: If beating Arizona is akin to a rite of passage in the Pac-12, then Utah could be in trouble. Both opportunities for the Utes to notch what would have been the marquee victory of their season came and went, the latter of which was an excruciating triple-OT affair in which both teams nearly put triple digits on the scoreboard, only for Arizona to eke it out in the end. Utah’s been in a tailspin since, with Sunday’s buzzer-beating put-back at UCLA serving as the lone reprieve from what has been a swift and painful bleed-out. For the first time all season, Utah is probably on the wrong side of the bubble, and the remaining opportunities—three in Quad 3 and three on road, the latter of which is a category that Utah is not very good in (2-6)—don’t inspire much confidence. Put your head down and get to work, or face the NIT. The choice is yours.
Colorado: Colorado is about as far out as the bubble reaches at this point in time. Just like the Utes before, the Buffaloes failed to capture the golden goose that is a win over Arizona, and neither result (97-50, 99-79) even threatened to do so. Aside from those two beatdowns, it’s been a game of “close, but no cigar” all year for the Buffs in Quad 1: 88-83 loss at Colorado State, 78-69 loss at Washington State, 73-68 loss at Utah… make it stop! The only such contest to fall their way was a 98-81 victory over Washington, but with the Huskies teetering along the Q1/Q2 edge at 72nd in NET, there’s no guarantee that that result stays put. All things considered, it’s a miracle that Colorado is even a bubble team at all, though their strong output against Quad 2 (6-4) and metrics averaging around 50th mean that they’re at least worth giving the time of day. But time is running out in Boulder.
SEC
This might be shocking to say, what with the whole “It Just Means More” mantra that the league forces down our gullets relentlessly, but I think the SEC doesn’t get enough credit. Everyone goes crazy over the competitiveness of the Big 12, or the thrills of the Big East, or the rollercoaster ride of the ACC. The SEC’s got a little bit of all that, just so ya know. But the only peeps I ever really seem to see spawn out of this conference in 2024 mostly just pertain to whatever drama is going down in Lexington at the moment. (Is Coach Cal getting canned or getting an extension to his lifetime contract? There can’t be any in between.)
The SEC might just get nine teams into March—as many as the Big 12 is currently projecting—and yet, there doesn’t seem to be much fanfare about it. Odd, considering it’s the SEC fanbases that tend to be the most boisterous about their sportsball. Step up your game, y’all!
Maybe we just need a little more time for things to really ramp up, but we don’t need to wait any longer to divvy out some locks to the league’s best. While there isn’t a clear frontrunner in the SEC, Tennessee does appear to be the team to beat, boasting an always-elite defense, a surprisingly stout offense for Rick Barnes’ standards, and team sheet metrics that only five or six other teams nationwide can compete with. The Volunteers are well on their way to a top-3 seed, and Alabama isn’t far behind. Though a sluggish start in non-con has left the Crimson Tide with a shoddy 2-6 Quad 1 record, it’s all the numbers behind the scenes (top-11 in all four metrics, 8th-toughest overall schedule, the #1 most efficient offense in the sport) that reconcile the Tide with a well-earned lock. If you’re not completely enthralled by Alabama’s argument, then Auburn may be even tougher to win you over, what with the Tigers also going an uninspiring 2-5 in that uppermost quadrant against an easier schedule. Again, it’s the metrics doing the heavy lifting here; aside from a 16th-ranked SOR, Auburn is a top-10 team according to every category, whether you’re in love with their single win above NET 45 or not.
If those résumés left you scratching your head, don’t worry! It only gets weirder once you dig deeper. Yep, the SEC is this year’s freak show of NCAAT at-large cases. Prepare yourself for some profiles the world has never before seen!
- Lock: Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn
- Safe: Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina
- Bubble: Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Ole Miss
Kentucky: How many seasons is this in a row now that Big Blue Nation has insisted that the sky is falling and that they need to blow everything up, only for the situation to be nothing more than a few drops of rain? I’ve lost count. I’ve seen Kentucky fans get into some tizzies but perhaps none more fervent than when the Wildcats had dropped their third home game in a row for the first time in Rupp Arena’s history. Off with Calipari’s head, they say! But consider this: those three teams you lost to (Tennessee, Florida, Gonzaga) are all really good! It’s more just a symptom of Kentucky being really young (like always) and maybe not playing the best defense as a unit. That’s just the way they’re built. But get this—they’re also built to bring the house down offensively, as they did in an 87-83 non-con victory over North Carolina back in December, or as they’ve done in almost every single game this year where they’ve totaled more points than their number of total possessions. That was even the case in a more reserved performance at Auburn on Saturday, when the Wildcats’ 67-possession 70-59 Q1A road win raised their metrics and overall profile right back into the realm of a comfortable 5 seed. Deep breaths, BBN. You’re going to be alright.
Florida: I really thought for a second there that Florida was never going to escape hell. After years of mediocrity under Mike White, the Gators finally dumped him to pick up San Francisco stud Todd Golden… only to disappoint in year one and get off to a rather unassuming start in year two. It was when Georgia, now coached by Florida’s old flame, came storming back late in Gainesville on Jan. 27 to send it into overtime that the thought went through my mind that Florida basketball was just destined to suffer forever. Oh, how wrong I was! The Gators held on in OT, then went and won at Kentucky, and (after a 1-point loss at Texas A&M) have since won three straight over Auburn, LSU, and Georgia again, this time in Athens. The Gator renaissance is here! Though a 3-7 Q1 record isn’t the prettiest looking thing on their profile, the top-30 ranking in each category sure makes up for it. It’s been about seven years since Florida was worth getting this excited over, but the wait’s been worth it.
South Carolina: A couple nasty losses recently doesn’t change the fact that this has been a dream season for South Carolina. It was just a year ago that the Gamecocks were hardly even a competitive basketball team, finishing 11-21 overall and 234th in the NET rankings. But when you’ve got a good coach like Lamont Paris, one who’s willing to dig into the transfer portal to find hidden gems like B.J. Mack and Ta’Lon Cooper, then anything is possible. Of course, we need to put the champagne and party hats away until the Gamecocks actually finish the job. They’re favored in just one of their five remaining games—a consequence of poor predictive metrics gathered via single-digit escapes against the likes of East Carolina and DePaul and absolute beatdowns to the hands of Alabama and Auburn. But these Gamecocks have overcome the odds before, taking down typical SEC powers Tennessee and Kentucky in the process. Why can’t they do it again?
Mississippi State: Winning on the road: very important if you want to be selected to the NCAA Tournament! As written above, there’s a chance that Nebraska could learn this the hard way—and Mississippi State could, too. Although the Bulldogs sit well within the top 40 of every metric, with wins over Tennessee and Auburn to boot, their seat is a little warmer than one would like for the simple reason that they’ve gone 1-6 in true road contests. Not great, Bob! But here’s the catch. Mississippi State’s got a leg up on Nebraska for one simple reason: the Huskers just can’t match the Bulldogs’ elite production on a neutral floor. Seriously; Mississippi State has played six neutral-site contests in 2023-24, and they’ve won them all—two against fellow at-large teams (Washington State and Northwestern). Odd that the Bulldogs wet their pants almost every time they step into an opposing gym yet turn into Superman when the stage is unbiased to either combatant, but college basketball is an odd sport. Just win another away game or two, and Mississippi State should be fine.
Texas A&M: This is where we really start getting into the weird résumés. South Carolina’s got that enormous results vs. predictives gap, and Mississippi State has that strange neutral vs. road games thing, but they don’t have anything on Texas A&M. Just look at the Aggies’ quadrant record line: 6-5 in Quad 1, 2-1 in Quad 2, 2-4 in Quad 3, 5-0 in Quad 4. Now that’s the good stuff. You might think that a 2-4 record in Q3 is immediate grounds for disqualification, a la 2023 Rutgers (the second team out of the tournament), but let’s pump the brakes: that Rutgers team had a losing Q1 record (4-7) and a sub-300 non-conference strength of schedule. A&M is 6-5 in the former category with three of those wins coming outside of College Station, and their 22nd-ranked NCSOS is among the nation’s best. These Aggies are clearly a cut above… though I certainly wouldn’t try anything funny when their résumé metrics (52nd in KPI, 48th in SOR) sit in the most uncomfortable spot possible. Just be normal, mmkay?
Ole Miss: Well, we’ve done it. We’ve found what is not just the most bizarre NCAA Tournament-hopeful résumé of 2024 but perhaps the most bizarre of all time. In all my years of bracketology, I have never seen a profile like Ole Miss. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has any clue what to do with this team. To recap: the Rebels are 19-6 overall, possess a pair of Quad 1 road wins, and rank 26th in KPI and 21st in SOR—marks that are essentially a guarantee for postseason inclusion. Great stuff! But also: Ole Miss is 65th in NET and even worse in both BPI and KenPom, played a bottom-40 non-conference schedule, and doesn’t have a single victory over a team ranked NET 25 or higher. Not great stuff! So what the hell do we do? Your guess is as good as mine. Historical precedent on those résumé numbers say that Ole Miss has to be in the conversation and is probably inside the tournament field altogether… but the remainder of the profile makes it really hard to concur with that conclusion. Buckle up; we may end up exploring bubble territory never before seen with these Rebels by the time it’s all said and done.
OTHERS
Welcome to the wonderful world of Others! Here is where we house those mid-majors that have gone above and beyond the expectations of their typical one-bid conferences, not necessarily requiring their conference’s automatic bid to receive entrance to March Madness. (Though that route never fails, mind you.)
The Others section is a fun conglomeration of college basketball’s best beyond the power conferences, though the category has sadly lost some oomph in 2024. Houston and Gonzaga have been first-edition lock staples year in and year out, but with Houston off to sunnier days in the Big 12 and Gonzaga surprisingly fighting for its life down on the bubble, there are no locks to hand out in the Others category in Week 1 of BBB. For shame.
But look at the bright side: Now I’ve got all the more time and space to really dig into a bevy of unique and interesting teams who don’t always get the national spotlight they deserve. And, hey, we’ll get some locks in this section soon enough. Just you wait.
(Before we begin, a quick shoutout to the following teams who I don’t really think have at-large cases right now, but are a bunch of fun to watch and root for nonetheless, and are maybe worth considering in the future: Appalachian State, James Madison, McNeese, Princeton, Samford, SMU, and South Florida. Hope to see all of y’all in March!)
- Lock:
- Safe: Dayton, Saint Mary’s, Florida Atlantic
- Bubble: Grand Canyon, Gonzaga, Indiana State, Drake
Dayton: Let’s clear something up about Dayton right here and now: This team is not the 2020 Dayton team that was deprived of being an NCAA Tournament 1 seed, nor is it close to that team in résumé or overall dominant feel. As tempting as it is to make that comparison, we need to put that 2020 team behind, and instead focus on how this year’s team is blazing its own trail and is deserving of its own separate praise. DaRon Holmes is maybe the best player in the country not named Zach Edey. The Flyers have blitzed through conference play, a couple buckets at Richmond and VCU away from remaining undefeated through the first two-thirds of its A-10 schedule. This is a very good mid-major, one that the selection committee mentioned as one of its first three teams just beyond the scope of the current top 16 this past Saturday. It’s an unfortunate stroke of luck that all of Dayton’s best wins (at SMU, neutral Cincinnati, neutral St. John’s) have aged poorly as time has gone by, but those don’t sully the quality of the metrics (top-12 results-wise, top-25 predictive-wise) or Dayton’s impressive 7-4 mark away from UD Arena in Quads 1 and 2. This is not a stone-cold, lock-it-up, surefire, top-of-the-line team like it was four years ago. But it’s a very, very good team nonetheless.
Saint Mary’s: There’s one class they teach at Saint Mary’s: How to Turn Your Season Around 101. Entering December, the Gaels were completely left for dead. Sky-high preseason expectations as the WCC team of choice over Gonzaga for the first time in god-knows-when immediately turned sour as Saint Mary’s sputtered to a 3-5 start with home losses to Utah and Weber State. The Dec. 23 defeat in Moraga to Missouri State looked the like cherry on top of a barf sundae. But the Gaels now own the nation’s second longest winning streak at 13 games (one behind UConn), steamrolling to a 12-0 record in conference play with critical victories at San Francisco and Gonzaga to completely save what was once a lost season. It’s not all sunshine just yet, as a 48.5 résumé metric average is more typical of a bubble team than a 6 or 7 seed where Saint Mary’s currently projects. But one or two bad data points in a sea of green shouldn’t give SMC any reason to worry at present moment.
Florida Atlantic: It’s strange times we live in where a school like Florida Atlantic can drop games to UAB, South Florida, Charlotte, Florida Gulf Coast, and Bryant, and basically everyone still agrees that, “Yep, this team should be going to the tournament!” That’s the way it should be for these upper-class mid-majors instead of the expectations of near-perfection we establish for them! But alas. The Owls actually get to have that leeway in large part because of the respect earned from last year’s unexpected dash to the Final Four, but reputation alone will not save you when you drop multiple Q3/Q4 games. Fortunately, FAU also has a sterling 6-1 neutral-court record against non-conference NET top 100 opponents to fall back on. It’s this collection of key November and December contests, back when the Owls beat Butler, Texas A&M, and even 1 seed contender Arizona all in a month-long span, that will save their skin when things get slightly hairy in AAC play. And as I said before, that’s the way it ought to be!
Grand Canyon: These days, it seems like we have some random team from a traditional one-bid conference pop up every year and really put together a concerted effort at an at-large bid, despite the odds stacked against them. It was Murray State in 2022, then FAU in 2023. It looks like Grand Canyon out of the WAC is the prime candidate in 2024. The Lopes have been one of the better mid-major programs in recent years but never to this extent: 23-2 with a results metric average (34.0) well inside at-large range, alongside a massive résumé-lifting win over likely top-4 seed San Diego State back in early December. It’s a really good spot to be in for a team from a conference that hasn’t produced anything higher than a 12 seed in the past decade and a half. Of course, that same conference is the reason that you can’t get your hopes about the Lopes too high. With GCU removed from the equation, the WAC sits comfortably in the bottom half of DI in adjusted efficiency, with a trip to Seattle (the Lopes’ lone conference loss) serving as the only possible result as Q2 or higher. Saying that GCU must tread carefully down the stretch would be underselling it.
Gonzaga: Gonzaga and the bubble—it’s like a peanut butter and grilled cheese sandwich: two different entities that coexist separately and are fun and enjoyable on their own. But together? It just feels… gross. Seeing the Zags struggle to stay alive after coasting to a top-half-of-the-bracket seed for the better part of the 21st century is just so wildly unfamiliar. What’s crazy to think is that Gonzaga probably wouldn’t be here at all if not for that season-saving victory at Kentucky a couple Saturdays back. That’s their lone victory in Quad 1; they’d be barren in the most important part of the team sheet without it. Gonzaga is a classic case of the résumé not matching what the underlying numbers say about this team, those numbers of course saying that the Bulldogs are actually quite good—maybe a top-20 team in the land, depending on your predictive metric of choice. But when all but one of their opportunities against top-tier opponents—games that the classic Zags would win routinely—have come and gone without a positive result, it’s easy to see how the straits have suddenly become so dire.
Indiana State: It’s a cruel, cruel world we live in. Excitement for the Indiana State Sycamores last week was at its all-time highest since Larry Bird stomped the streets of Terre Haute, with ISU joining the AP top 25 for the first time since 1979. Of course, there’s a horrible curse that comes with that little number which renders teams unable to play basketball, and the Sycamores fell victim to it, dropping two straight to NET 180 Illinois State and NET 109 Southern Illinois, easily their two worst losses of the season, back-to-back. That’s not quite a death knell for this team, which still places in the top 50 in every measure, but with their single Q1 victory being over non-at-large contender Bradley, it’s a steep mountain ahead. Surely the margin of error between now and the championship game of the Missouri Valley tournament is gone, but maybe, just maybe, the Sycamores will put this disaster week behind them, stiffen up in crunch time, and get to that golden doorstep. I sure hope so. God knows we need to see Robbie Avila in the tournament.
Drake: While Indiana State was getting all the attention, it turns that Drake may have been the MVC’s number one at-large choice all along. While the Bulldogs are a little uglier in the ugly loss department, having dropped three Q3 contests along the way, they’re right there with the Sycamores metrically speaking and have a 5-2 Q1/Q2 record to show for their trouble, with one of those wins being a resounding 72-53 neutral-court besting of at-large likely Nevada. That’s a pretty compelling case! If the Valley wants to fit two bids into the bracket, I think there’s a clear course of action to follow: With the MVC basing its conference tournament seeding on NET rank, Drake should slide into the #2 spot, setting up a quality Q2 date with #3 Bradley in the Arch Madness semis. Then Drake loses to Indiana State in the MVC title game, the Sycamores get in automatically, and the Bulldogs enter March as an at-large. Problem solved! Would you be willing to take one for the team, Drake? Probably not.