Bubble Watch / Bracketology

[sedz]

Not too many big bubble games tonight. Colorado, Washington St, and Memphis will be trying to avoid bad losses. Oregon could pick up a borderline Q2 win at home.

Memphis has been struggling but they still have potentially four Q1 games coming up.

[Carthage World]

Not too many big bubble games tonight. Colorado, Washington St, and Memphis will be trying to avoid bad losses. Oregon could pick up a borderline Q2 win at home.

Memphis has been struggling but they still have potentially four Q1 games coming up.

Very little movement in this morning's NET rankings with results going chalk last night.

As for tonight, Colorado St (NET #27) will be heavy favorites against a bad San Jose St team at home.

Dayton (NET #16) travels to VCU (NET #79) in a game that likely won't have bubble implications even if the Rams pull off the upset.

The one to watch tonight will be San Diego St (NET #21) @ Nevada (NET #48). Nevada has a 4-2 Q1 record and could leap over a number of bubble teams with a back-to-back Q1 home wins over the Aztecs tonight as well as New Mexico on Tuesday.

[GoBearcats31]

There is something called NIT Bracketology and UC is not on there -- let's keep it that way ... A win over Houston and/or Iowa State next Tuesday would be a great way to stay on the right side of things. https://www.nitbracketology.com/2024...cketology.html

[sedz]

I wonder if Samford could get a look as an at-large. They took advantage of their last remaining quality game last night, winning at UNCG. Samford currently sits at 19-3 with a 2-2 record in Q1/Q2 games and one bad loss. If they take care of business the rest of the way and lose in the conference tourney final, they'd be 28-4. But without a Q1 win, it probably won't be enough. Such is life for small conference teams.

[GoBearcats31]

I wonder if Samford could get a look as an at-large. They took advantage of their last remaining quality game last night, winning at UNCG. Samford currently sits at 19-3 with a 2-2 record in Q1/Q2 games and one bad loss. If they take care of business the rest of the way and lose in the conference tourney final, they'd be 28-4. But without a Q1 win, it probably won't be enough. Such is life for small conference teams.

Interesting -- wasn't aware of their success. Agree, likely not enough...

Researching this team, interesting they have 20 players listed on the roster. It doesn't surprise me if a major program, especially a big state school, has a ton of walk-ons. But how did they get 20 kids? Also I noticed Zach Loveday of Gallipolis, OH averaging 2.8 points in 6.3 mins per game. The 7-footer transferred in after three low impact seasons at Baylor, where he signed as a 3-star recruit but was at one time a Top 50 recruit. Definitely seems like he had a lot of "potential" at his size but never was as good as the recruiting "experts" projected him...

[sedz]

Interesting -- wasn't aware of their success. Agree, likely not enough...

Researching this team, interesting they have 20 players listed on the roster. It doesn't surprise me if a major program, especially a big state school, has a ton of walk-ons. But how did they get 20 kids? Also I noticed Zach Loveday of Gallipolis, OH averaging 2.8 points in 6.3 mins per game. The 7-footer transferred in after three low impact seasons at Baylor, where he signed as a 3-star recruit but was at one time a Top 50 recruit. Definitely seems like he had a lot of "potential" at his size but never was as good as the recruiting "experts" projected him...

I guess if you have 20 players you can run 5v5 in practice on both ends. That would be nice.

There are several other small conference teams with 3 or fewer losses: Indiana St, Grand Canyon, Princeton, Cornell, McNeese, and James Madison. Indiana St and Grand Canyon would have very strong at-large cases I think, and the others could if the bubble gets much weaker. Then there's Appalachian St, who despite having 4 bad losses, is 3-1 in Q1/2 including a huge win against Auburn. I'd much rather see these teams in the tournament than middling power conference teams (except UC of course).

[GoBearcats31]

UC is the last team in on the latest Lundardi update https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/st...ld-predictions

Some bubble teams to watch this weekend
Nebraska - Saturday versus Michigan (#103 NET)
Butler - Saturday versus Providence (#56)
Ole Miss - no game
Florida - Saturday versus Auburn (#7)
Mississippi State - Saturday at Missouri (#145)
Washington State - Saturday at Oregon (#56)
Seton Hall - Sunday at Villanova (#47 -- though according to XU fans, local media they may be #1)
St. John's - Saturday at Marquette (#11)
Wake Forest - Saturday versus NC State (#80)
Colorado - Saturday at Arizona (#3)
Nevada - Friday/tonight versus San Diego State (21)
Providence - Saturday at Butler (#51)
Xavier - Saturday versus Creighton (#19)
Villanova - Sunday versus Seton Hall (#67)
Memphis - Sunday versus Tulane (#118)

[swilsonsp4]

VCU (#79 NET) just knocked off UD in Richmond, 44-42. That's VCU's first Q1 win (1-3).

[bearcatbret]

I just have to say that Michigan stinks this year.

[Carthage World]

Nevada beat SDSU 70-66 in OT last night for their 5th Q1 win. They rose from 48 to 46 in NET as a result.

SDSU had chances to close the game out late in regulation but couldn't get the necessary stops down the stretch.

[GoBearcats31]

X drops a big chance at home versus Creighton. Made a big run late to make the score respectable.

[GoBearcats31]

@BracketGuyDave:

”Here's a reason why simply looking at standalone Quad victories can be problematic (without context). Just an example: Illinois is 3-4 vs. Quad 1 opponents. One of those (Ohio State - NET 71 as a road win) is against a team nowhere near the NCAA tournament.”

[sedz]

@BracketGuyDave:

”Here's a reason why simply looking at standalone Quad victories can be problematic (without context). Just an example: Illinois is 3-4 vs. Quad 1 opponents. One of those (Ohio State - NET 71 as a road win) is against a team nowhere near the NCAA tournament.”

Not sure why that's problematic. It's still tough to beat Ohio St on the road even if they aren't a tournament team. Outside of their recent loss to Indiana, they've beaten every non-tournament team they've played at home including several top 100 teams. And they beat Alabama on a neutral floor.

Quad 1 is a top 50 neutral game, so it's a good general grouping of tournament level games. 75 on the road is as difficult as 50 neutral. Some kind of sorting system is necessary to compare teams. No human con consider every game that every team has played and make a complete accurate appraisal. Sorting games into four groups is very helpful.

And the committee team sheets split Q1 into two further groups, which aren't often mentioned. Q1-A is top a 25 neutral game (15 home, 40 road). I'm sure the committee gets into the details after using quadrant records as the main sorting tool.

[Carthage World]

Saturday Recap:

UC is the last team in on the latest Lundardi update https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/st...ld-predictions

Some bubble teams to watch this weekend
Nebraska - Saturday versus Michigan (#103 NET)
Butler - Saturday versus Providence (#56)
Ole Miss - no game
Florida - Saturday versus Auburn (#7)
Mississippi State - Saturday at Missouri (#145)
Washington State - Saturday at Oregon (#56)
Seton Hall - Sunday at Villanova (#47 -- though according to XU fans, local media they may be #1)
St. John's - Saturday at Marquette (#11)
Wake Forest - Saturday versus NC State (#80)
Colorado - Saturday at Arizona (#3)
Nevada - Friday/tonight versus San Diego State (21)
Providence - Saturday at Butler (#51)
Xavier - Saturday versus Creighton (#19)
Villanova - Sunday versus Seton Hall (#67)
Memphis - Sunday versus Tulane (#118)

Nebraska won by 20 - rose 4 spots to #53 in NET (Q1 3-5, Q2 3-3, no bad losses)

Butler won by 3 - rose 1 spot to #50 in NET (Q1 3-7, Q2 4-1, no bad losses)

Florida won by 16 - rose 7 spots to #31 in NET (Q1 2-7, Q2 3-0, no bad losses)

Miss St won by 24 - rose 9 spots to #35 in NET (Q1 3-6, Q2 3-0, 1 Q3 & 1 Q4 loss)

Wash St won by 6 - rose 1 spot to #40 in NET (Q1 4-3, Q2 4-2, 1 Q3 loss)

St. John's lost by 11 - dropped 2 spots to #45 in NET (Q1 2-8, Q2 5-1, 1 Q3 loss)

Wake Forest won by 4 - dropped 3 spots to #36 in NET (Q1 0-3, Q2 5-4, no bad losses)

Colorado lost by 20 - dropped 8 spots to #39 in NET (Q1 1-5, Q2 5-3, no bad losses)

Nevada won by 4 - stay at #46 in NET (Q1 5-2, Q2 0-2, 1 Q3 loss)

Providence lost by 3 - dropped 1 spot to #57 in NET (Q1 4-6, Q2 2-3, no bad losses)

Xavier lost by 7 - dropped 2 spots to #52 in NET (Q1 2-8, Q2 5-1, 2 Q3 losses)

[sedz]

Saturday Recap:
...

Great summary. I'd also add that Texas A&M and Gonzaga picked up Q1 wins. Gonzaga is similar to Memphis - their resumes aren't great right now but they have several Q1 games remaining.

Kentucky is in a major slide and they will be on the bubble if they don't turn it around soon. They're now just Q1 2-5, Q2 3-1 with a Q3 loss. Two of those Q2 wins are close to dropping to Q3.

New Mexico picked up a bad home loss to UNLV. Their resume isn't great either: Q1 2-2, Q2 2-2 and now a Q3 loss. All of their quality wins are on their home floor and their non-con SOS is 258.

Most bracketologists have Kentucky and New Mexico in the 6-7 seed range, which is solely based on metrics and almost ignores their team sheets. They will be interesting test cases if it stays that way.