I will be adding additional analysis to the blog this week in multiple sports so I will not present an opening paragraph to this article. Instead let’s jump right into the details, which is what all you guys/gals care about anyway. Here is where things currently stand through Sunday, February 10:
America East: Stony Brook
Atlantic Ten: Butler
Looking good: VCU
Need wins: St. Louis, Temple, LaSalle
Life support: UMass, Charlotte
Summary: last week was excellent for 6 of the 7 teams I list as being alive to earn a tourney berth. Charlotte was the only one in the group that hurt themselves by losing a pair of games vs. fellow NCAA Tourney hopefuls Temple & VCU. The 49’ers are no question the last team on the A-10 list, and they are currently barely hanging on – right now it’s an extreme longshot they would be dancing, but sitting at 17-6/5-4/#60 keeps them on the list for another week.
ACC: Miami, Fla
Looking good: Duke, NC State
Need wins: North Carolina
Life support: Virginia, Maryland
Summary: the Canes continue playing incredible basketball this season. I projected them to win the ACC, but did not envision this scenario where they are sitting at 10-0 and clearly the best team in the conference. NC State continues its slide – their defense is AWFUL. They temporarily stopped the bleeding beating Clemson at home by just one point, again showing their struggles of late that has led to losing 3 of 4, 4 of 6 and 5 of 8. Virginia looks to be the best of the ACC bubble teams & handled business last week versus Clemson at home & fellow bubble team Maryland in College Park. For now I will leave both teams in “Life Support” but Maryland is just barely hanging on. Both those schools need to at least finish at 9-9 in conference play, and continue boosting their RPI’s which currently sit in the low 70s – which would not be good enough if today was Selection Sunday.
Atlantic Sun: Florida Gulf Coast
Big 12: Kansas
Looking good: Kansas State, Oklahoma State
Need wins: Oklahoma, Iowa State, Baylor
Summary: Kansas has lost 3 straight including @ Oklahoma Saturday. The Sooners are very close to securing their own bid and sliding up to the “Looking Good” category, joining Kansas State & Oklahoma State. ISU remains well positioned at RPI #37 if they can continue winning games at their current clip – and these next two weeks feature four winnable games which if won would slide them up to the next category. Baylor has RPI #53 but does not have many resume building wins in conference play – the only win over a Big 12 team listed here is a 10pt home win over Oklahoma State; they will have five chances over their last eight games to secure more, and I feel at least two will be needed to get firmly in the discussion.
Big East: Louisville
Looking good: Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Marquette, Cincinnati
Life Support: Villanova, St. Johns
Summary: there was some shifting here as the order of the “Looking Good” category changed, Marquette moved up from “Need Wins” into “Looking Good”, while Rutgers was eliminated from the conversation following their 6th straight loss Saturday. Right now it seems 7 teams are a lock to be dancing (remember UConn is not eligible for the NCAA Tournament this season), while Villanova & St John’s remain in consideration but still have much work to do. The first target for those two teams is reaching at least 9-9 in conference play; next up will be winning at least one game @ MSG in the Big East Tournament. Stay tuned.
Big Sky: Montana
Big South: UNC-Asheville
Big Ten: Indiana
Looking good: Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Minnesota
Need wins: Wisconsin, Illinois
Summary: with 7 teams in the RPI Top 31 there is plenty of strength at this top of this conference. That can work two ways: one, it allows the opportunity for many teams to pick up big resume building wins (see Illinois last week); two, it also has a negative impact by forcing teams to play each other often, beating up on their records and perhaps impacting their potential NCAA Tournament seeds negatively. Right now I see five teams as locks to be dancing; Wisconsin is very close to moving up to the lock level, while Illinois is the 7th and last team involved in the discussion. With Illinois sitting at 4-7 in conference play let’s take a look at their closing schedule and see how likely it is they reach the .500 mark – which is what will likely be needed: they have a trio of home games that should be near certain wins: PUR, PSU & NEB. If they swept those that would move them to 7-7; four games would remain of which 2-2 would be needed from @ NW, @ MICH, @ IOWA, @ OSU – that will certainly be an uphill battle for the inconsistent Illini. If they were to go 8-10 in conference play they could still have a chance based on their solid RPI, OOC wins & the strength of the Big Ten, but they most likely would need to reach the Big Ten Title Game. We will know a lot more about Illinois after their next 3 vs. PUR, @ NW, vs. PSU.
Big West: Long Beach State (replaced last week’s projected conference winner Pacific)
Colonial: Northeastern
Conference USA: Memphis
Looking good: Southern Mississippi
Life Support: UCF
Summary: Memphis firmly handled Southern Miss on the road Saturday establishing themselves as once again the class of CUSA. The Golden Eagles are still well positioned to earn their own berth but with an RPI #49 they still clearly have work to do and cannot afford multiple slip-ups going forward considering this conference has no other teams in the RPI Top 83, and has plenty of very low ranked teams. UCF has won 6 of 7 keeping their slim hopes alive, but with RPI #83 & zero OOC wins to bolster their resume, they need to at worst close 7-1 (and in those eight games are home & home versus Memphis, and @ Southern Miss) – seems highly unlikely.
Horizon: Valparaiso
Ivy: Harvard
MAAC: Canisius (replaced last week’s projected conference winner Niagara)
MAC: Akron
If AKRON does not win their conference tournament they would still BE ALIVE ON LIFE SUPPORT to receive a bid, thus adding themselves to the pool of at-large teams.
MEAC: North Carolina Central
Missouri Valley: Creighton
Looking good: Wichita State, Indiana State
Summary: this week we slid the Sycamores up to the “Looking Good” bucket following their win over Creighton. ISU has now beaten both heavyweights in the conference, and also has a huge OOC win over Miami, Fla on a neutral floor. It seems at this point barring any of these three going downhill quickly the MVC will earn three bids.
Mountain West: New Mexico
Looking good: UNLV, Colorado State
Need wins: San Diego State
Life Support: Boise State, Air Force, Wyoming
Summary: along with the A-10 the MWC is the cream of the mid-major crop top to bottom (if we are just considering top teams the MVC and perhaps CUSA could be included as well) – which will lead to multiple bids – but how many is the questions. Currently I feel three teams would 100% be dancing if the selections were today, with San Diego State better than a 50/50 chance to also earn a bid. The real analysis here is needed on those bottom three – led by BSU that has a solid RPI #45 & a win over Creighton but only has one conference win over the top 4 listed here, 77-72 at home over UNLV. AF sits at RPI #67, has no OOC wins worthy of mention, and they too have only one win over top 4 listed here, 70-67 at home over San Diego State. Last up is Wyoming, who has struggled after losing their best player G Luke Martinez – they have RPI #61, have a win over Colorado (with Martinez), and also have only one win over top 4 listed here, 58-45 at home over San Diego State. Considering the Cowboys are 2-7 in conference play this is likely their last inclusion in this analysis – the loss of Martinez essentially crushed their season, which started extremely hopeful at 13-0. BSU & AF have a real uphill battle – the two square off on Feb 20th @ Boise in perhaps an elimination game.
Northeast: Bryant
Ohio Valley: Belmont
If BELMONT does not win their conference tournament they would still BE ALIVE IN NEED WINS to receive a bid, thus adding themselves to the pool of at-large teams.
Pac 12: Arizona
Need wins: UCLA, Colorado, Oregon
Life Support: Arizona State, Stanford, Washington, California
Summary: very much like last season the Pac 12 is full of teams that have not separated from the group as a whole, besides Arizona who is safely in the field, currently battling for a #1 seed in the West. The only team besides the Cats that has a current RPI inside the top 37 is Colorado, sitting @ #18. Although the Buffs have the 2nd best RPI I have the Bruins as the 2nd most likely team to receive a bid as they have that huge road win in Tucson, along with a strong OOC win over Missouri. Before beating Utah at home on Saturday the Ducks had lost 3 straight after a 7-0 start in conference play – they are far from secure, but will enjoy an incredibly weak closing schedule that doesn’t feature Arizona, UCLA, or Arizona State. The four teams on “Life Support” sit with RPI’s between #60-#80 and are unlikely to earn a bid sans a run to a Pac 12 Tournament Title, or a very strong close to their regular season – in the neighborhood of 6-1 – unlikely.
Patriot: Bucknell
SEC: Florida
Looking good: Kentucky, Missouri
Need wins: Ole Miss, Alabama
Summary: we have removed Texas A&M from the analysis as their RPI of #71, combined with a 4-6 conference mark which includes losing 6 of their last 8 doesn’t warrant any consideration right now, and it’s very hard to see a scenario where they can string together multiple wins in a row to get back into the discussion. That leaves us with 5 SEC teams in the mix, with Florida the cream of this crop by an extremely wide margin. UK & Missouri are “Looking Good” and have almost locked up their bids. Kentucky is coming together quite nicely as they now stand in sole possession of 2nd place at 8-2, and have won 5 straight, 7 of 8 & 9 of 11. Although they have nothing to write home about in OOC play, understandable with such a young team, they are coming together and will be a force come March. The Tigers are getting healthy just in time for the stretch run and have as many nice, talented pieces as just about anyone sans about a half dozen teams in the country. They currently sit at 17-6 but 3 of those losses were by 3pts or less; they still face UK & FLA once which will be a good barometer for this Tiger team. The Rebels are still well positioned for a strong close to the regular season, but with an RPI in the upper 40s, and a weak conference, they need to continue picking up wins – losing 3 of their last 4 hurts, and they absolutely cannot afford many more losses – the good thing from a record perspective is they will not face UK or FLA, but that will not help their RPI either. Alabama @ 14-8/7-3/#63 would be on the outside looking in right now – and probably will be again when Selection Sunday rolls around unless they can string together a run in the SEC Tournament to at least a Title Game appearance. For now they have earned the right to remain in the analysis – how much longer that lasts depends on how quickly they pick up losses – they could be removed as early as next week, that’s how “on the fringe” they are currently.
Southern: Davidson
Southland: Stephen F. Austin
SWAC: Southern
Summit: South Dakota State
Sun Belt: Middle Tennessee State
If MTSU does not win their conference tournament they would still BE ALIVE IN NEED WINS to receive a bid, thus adding themselves to the pool of at-large teams.
West Coast: Gonzaga
If GONZAGA does not win their conference tournament they would still RECEIVE a bid, thus taking a bid away from the current at-large pool.
Need wins: St. Mary’s
Life Support: BYU
Summary: this week we slid BYU down a level to “Life Support” based on their terrible pair of losses @ San Diego & at home to San Francisco. The Cougars probably need to run the table in conference play to remain alive – that would include a pair of wins over the other two teams mentioned in this analysis. Gonzaga remains a lock to earn a bid with or without a WCC Tournament crown, while St Mary’s does not appear to be near the top of at-large teams this season sporting RPI #50, and no big OOC. The Gaels and Bulldogs face off in California Thursday night – a win by STM would go a long way towards securing their own berth.
WAC: Louisiana Tech
If LA TECH does not win their conference tournament they would still BE ALIVE IN NEED WINS to receive a bid, thus adding themselves to the pool of at-large teams.
FIELD: 68
AUTOMATIC BIDS: 31
LOOKING GOOD: 22 (+2 from last week)
Currently I project 53 of the 68 bids are earned. That means there are 15 unsecured/open bids.
NEED WINS: 16 (-2 from last week)
LIFE SUPPORT: 15 (-2 from last week)
That leaves 31 teams that are in the mix for 15 open bids.
Keep in mind however that DOES NOT include the upsets we will see during Conference Tournament week where teams that are LOCKS from smaller conferences lose a game in their conference tournament and hence use an at-large bid on themselves.
What is interesting with the numbers this time around is the “Need Wins” category has 16 teams & there are 15 bids remaining to be decided. The “Life Support” group contains teams that need a small miracle to earn themselves a berth – but they are still included in the conversation at this point because their #’s right now (one way or another) support a chance at accomplishing that goal – but with many of these teams give it time and they will eliminate themselves most likely. I would be surprised if more than a handful (maximum) of those teams wound up earning an at-large bid.
Last point, to serve as a reminder of how accurate my NCAA Tournament projections typically were last year – the first year they were posted for everyone to read. Last year I did not have the “Life Support” bucket, only used “Looking Good” and “Need Wins.” Examining my very first projection which was posted in early February (like this year) I included 24 teams in my “Looking Good” category – and 22 of those 24 wound up earning bids to the dance. And including all teams I posted in that article one way or another only two teams wound up making the dance as an at-large that did not show up in my first projection article. That point serves as a reminder that I take A LOT of time working on these projections, compiling a solid amount of numbers & analysis behind each team – so you should feel very confident and comfortable there will not be any teams that aren’t listed in this article that earn an at-large bid, and the teams listed in “Looking Good” have a 90% PLUS chance of earning a bid come Selection Sunday.
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