Breakdown of NCAAT locks and bubble teams

[Plebe]

The following 35 teams are absolute locks (regardless of any potential losses before selection day):

• ACC (7): NC State, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Miami
• Big 12 (5): Baylor, Iowa State, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas
• Big Ten (6): Michigan, Maryland, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio State, Nebraska
• Pac-12 (5): Stanford, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, Utah
• SEC (7): South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky
• Others (4): UConn, BYU, FGCU, UCF

The following 4 teams are highly probable NCAA tournament teams; i.e., it would be very hard to justify leaving them out. I think of them as "bubble adjacent."

• Kansas State, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arkansas, Creighton, South Florida, Princeton

[Edit to add: Teams in italics have won automatic bids.]

The above 38 teams include 9 automatic qualifiers and 29 at-large teams. That would leave 7 remaining at-large bids available (since the expansion to a 68-team field means that 36 at-large bids will be awarded).

====

The bubble. Those remaining 7 bids will likely come from the following pool of bubble teams. (I am defining "bubble" very liberally for purposes of inclusion in this list, for now; NET ranking as of 3/2 is noted in parentheses):

• ACC: Boston College (48), Florida State (52), Duke (56)
• Big Ten: Northwestern (66), Michigan State (70)
• Pac-12: Washington State (58), Oregon State (54), UCLA (41)
• SEC: Missouri (50), Alabama (57), Mississippi State (60)
• Big East: DePaul (53), Villanova (71), Marquette (69)
• Others: Missouri State (44), Dayton (43), South Dakota State (36), Northern Iowa (49), Rhode Island** (61), Liberty (71), Tulane (74), Southern Illinois** (76), Gonzaga* (25), UMass* (51), Belmont* (51), IUPUI* (67).

* Gonzaga, Belmont, UMass and IUPUI are stricken through because they have won automatic bids.​

** Rhode Island, Tulane, Liberty and Southern Illinois are grayed because their conference tournament losses weaken their resumes significantly.​

 

[nwhoopfan]

Nice work and compilation...but Alabama? Surely you jest? Please tell me you're joking.

 

[Plebe]

Nice work and compilation...but Alabama? Surely you jest? Please tell me you're joking.

LOL of all those painfully weak bubble teams you of course single out the SEC one.

Did you not see the part where I said "very liberally"?

 

[nwhoopfan]

I tried responding but my post wasn't appearing for some reason.

Bad timing expanding the field to 68 this year. There aren't 64 deserving teams, let alone 68.

In the name of fairness, Oregon St. really shouldn't be a bubble team. There, I said it.

But I also have to add Mississippi St. to Alabama on the list of SEC teams who have no business being considered for a bid.

 

[Plebe]

I tried responding but my post wasn't appearing for some reason.

Bad timing expanding the field to 68 this year. There aren't 64 deserving teams, let alone 68.

In the name of fairness, Oregon St. really shouldn't be a bubble team. There, I said it.

But I also have to add Mississippi St. to Alabama on the list of SEC teams who have no business being considered for a bid.

FWIW I agree regarding Mississippi State and Alabama. I actually think Oregon State has a stronger case than either of those two.

IMO the bubble teams with the strongest cases are (in no particular order) the following 12:

Boston College​

Miami​

Northwestern​

Washington State​

Oregon State​

Kentucky​

Missouri​

DePaul​

Villanova​

Missouri State​

Gonzaga​

Dayton​

​

And of course this landscape can change with the games still to be played in the next week and a half.​

 

[undersized]

The bubble will be a bit less crowded if some of the mid-majors in question (Missouri State, Dayton, Belmont, etc) clinch the auto-bid in their conference tourneys. Should they not, I'm very curious which conferences, if any, will get two bids.

 

[Plebe]

Making a few updates to my list:

Moving Colorado, Utah and Arkansas from "highly probable" to locks after their conference tournament wins (over Arizona, Washington State and Missouri, respectively).

It's still a soft, messy bubble. FSU's win over BC may move FSU up and drop BC back slightly in the pecking order.

 

[Plebe]

Rhode Island loses in the A-10 quarterfinals to St. Joseph. Pretty sure that bursts their bubble. They had the win over Princeton and were 2-2 overall in Quad 1 games ... but those three Quad 3 losses are a total resume killer. WNIT bound.

 

[Vowelguy]

I tried responding but my post wasn't appearing for some reason.

Bad timing expanding the field to 68 this year. There aren't 64 deserving teams, let alone 68.

.

Most years there aren’t 64, which is why expanding to 68 was bad.

 

[triaddukefan]

Not sure if they were on the bubble.. But Miami is off now

 

[MSGRET]

Not sure if they were on the bubble.. But Miami is off now

Creme had them as an 11 seed in Storrs.

 

[Basket]

I tried responding but my post wasn't appearing for some reason.

Bad timing expanding the field to 68 this year. There aren't 64 deserving teams, let alone 68.

In the name of fairness, Oregon St. really shouldn't be a bubble team. There, I said it.

But I also have to add Mississippi St. to Alabama on the list of SEC teams who have no business being considered for a bid.

Correct Beavers are history. Never really got on track

BC (first out) needed Dayton to win and Rhode Island (first 4 out) UMass (last 4 out) and Northwestern (last in) to lose. Perfect except UMass won. Dayton just needs to beat UMass and win the A10 and BC is still breathing and maybe off life support. Something tells me UMass will beat Dayton which means multiple teams in from A10. That’s not good.

 

[triaddukefan]

Creme had them as an 11 seed in Storrs.

I was thinking earlier that some 5th or 6th seed is not going to have a fun time playing them. I guess depending on tomorrow... Could they move up to a #10 seed.

 

[bballnut90]

Kentucky is a lock after tonight. After a tough start Elzy has righted the ship, they've won 8 straight. I think they'll beat Tennessee or Bama tomorrow.

 

[Basket]

The bubble will be a bit less crowded if some of the mid-majors in question (Missouri State, Dayton, Belmont, etc) clinch the auto-bid in their conference tourneys. Should they not, I'm very curious which conferences, if any, will get two bids.

A10 will if UMass beats Dayton. Both are in

 

[Basket]

Rhode Island loses in the A-10 quarterfinals to St. Joseph. Pretty sure that bursts their bubble. They had the win over Princeton and were 2-2 overall in Quad 1 games ... but those three Quad 3 losses are a total resume killer. WNIT bound.

What is a Quad 1,2,3?

 

[Plebe]

What is a Quad 1,2,3?

NET rankings: What to know about college basketball's new tool to help select the NCAA tournament field

The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee has a new tool that hopefully should crystalize the ranking system before the selection and seeding of teams for the 2019 NCAA tournament.

www.ncaa.com

 

[nwhoopfan]

What about Kansas? No idea what their NET is. Beat Oklahoma today. Beat Texas earlier. Nothing much in OOC. Swept West Virginia, who was mentioned as a bubble team. 11-7 in Big 12 and 20-8 overall, which is much, much, much better than WVU's record.

edit--split w/ OU, Texas and K State

 

[Plebe]

What about Kansas? No idea what their NET is. Beat Oklahoma today. Beat Texas earlier. Nothing much in OOC. Swept West Virginia, who was mentioned as a bubble team. 11-7 in Big 12 and 20-8 overall, which is much, much, much better than WVU's record.

edit--split w/ OU, Texas and K State

Did you not notice I put them above in the "highly probable" group, along with Kansas State and others? Today's win at OU definitely moves them to "lock".

FWIW of all the 20+ teams I identified in the loosely defined "bubble", WVU was perhaps the weakest (yes, even weaker than Alabama ). Their recent win over Kansas State was their first quality win of the season, but as blah as their entire season has been, if they can follow that up with a win over Iowa State today, they are definitely in the mix.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Oops. I scanned the original post, but missed Kansas. My bad.

There have been some really big turnarounds in wcbb this year. Kansas certainly isn't the biggest, but they've pretty much flown under the radar and are having themselves a nice season.

edit--maybe a job saving coaching job at KU this year? Kinda amazing he's survived this long, the previous 6 years were dreadful

 

[Plebe]

Oops. I scanned the original post, but missed Kansas. My bad.

There have been some really big turnarounds in wcbb this year. Kansas certainly isn't the biggest, but they've pretty much flown under the radar and are having themselves a nice season.

edit--maybe a job saving coaching job at KU this year? Kinda amazing he's survived this long, the previous 6 years were dreadful

He's having the success this year that Jody Wynn could've had in the next year or two if UW wasn't so trigger happy

Until KU upset Texas in January, they'd done nothing to make anyone think this was an NCAAT team. Their OOC schedule was a big nothing sandwich, except for a game vs. Tennessee which they lost badly.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Oh no you didn't!

 

[nwhoopfan]

Missouri St. with a not great 18 point loss to Loyola, Chi. MVC regular season finale? Southern Illinois also w/ a bad loss to Valpo, but the Salukis back into the regular season crown.

 

[Plebe]

Missouri St. with a not great 18 point loss to Loyola, Chi. MVC regular season finale? Southern Illinois also w/ a bad loss to Valpo, but the Salukis back into the regular season crown.

Missouri State lost their leading scorer and rebounder, Jasmine Franklin, to an ACL injury just before Christmas. Clearly not as good as the team that demolished Virginia Tech on a neutral court.

Side trivia: If Missouri State had won this game, they would've tied Southern Illinois for first and, since they split their head-to-head, the MVC would've awarded the tiebreaker to the team with the higher NET ranking. Hadn't heard of that one before.

 

[Lorcan]

Missouri State lost their leading scorer and rebounder, Jasmine Franklin, to an ACL injury just before Christmas. Clearly not as good as the team that demolished Virginia Tech on a neutral court.

Side trivia: If Missouri State had won this game, they would've tied Southern Illinois for first and, since they split their head-to-head, the MVC would've awarded the tiebreaker to the team with the higher NET ranking. Hadn't heard of that one before.

Side trivia: The first league that I know of to use this tiebreaker for seeding purposes is the Summit League, where South Dakota State edged South Dakota to the top spot by just two ranking positions, as the Jackrabbits were 34, with the Coyotes 36. Interesting that some leagues are already using this as a tiebreaker when NET hasn't really been proven.