Bubble Watch 1/25/20

Big Ten
Locks: Michigan St., Maryland, Iowa, Penn St., Wisconsin, Rutgers, Illinois
Should be in: Ohio St., Michigan
Work to do: Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue

Ohio St. and Michigan were once top 5 teams, let’s not forget that. Ohio St. still has strong metrics, and both of these teams have played games missing key players during their recent slides. I fully expect them to turn things around before the end of the season to easily claim bids as middling seeds.

Indiana just needs some more quality wins. They’ve taken care of business and avoided bad losses (10-0 vs Q3/4), but they have only 3 quad 1 wins. Add a few more quad 1 and quad 2 wins and this is a team that could earn a good seed. Minnesota and Purdue have the opposite issue. They have good wins, but they just have so many losses (albeit against quality opposition) that their overall record makes it difficult to justify selection. As the saying goes… “Just win, baby.”
Weekend games:
Indiana vs Maryland (Q1B opportunity)
Minnesota vs Michigan St. (Q1A opportunity)
Purdue idle

Big East
Locks: Seton Hall, Butler, Villanova, Creighton
Should be in: Marquette
Work to do: Georgetown, Xavier, DePaul, St. John’s Providence

Marquette missed a golden opportunity against Butler on 1/24 with an overtime loss. They should still be safe, but that probably would have locked up a bid for the Golden Eagles.

The bottom half of the league is filled with teams that have mixed and middling profiles.
Georgetown is still searching for a signature win. They’ll get an opportunity to host Butler and Seton hall in the coming weeks, so we’ll see if they can capitalize.
Xavier is also lacking the top end wins on its profile. They’ll travel to Creighton this week, and could add another quality (although still not marquee) win against Marquette later this week.
DePaul had a great showing in the nonconference portion of the schedule, and has come back to Earth a bit since conference play started. 3 Q1A wins is great, but 2 Q3 losses offset that to some degree. This is a team that just needs to take care of business.
St. John’s is a team with no road wins thus far. I heard an interesting stat that only a handful of teams have been selected for an at large bid in recent years without more than 3 road wins.
Providence has been very up and down. They’ve got 2 losses in each of quad 3 and quad 4, which really weighs down the profile. They’ll need to continue to step up in conference play to offset the early hole they dug for themselves.
Weekend games:
Marquette idle
Georgetown idle
Xavier at Creighton (Q1A opportunity)
DePaul vs St. John’s (Q3)
St. John’s at DePaul (Q1B opportunity)
Providence vs Villanova (Q1A opportunity)

ACC
Locks: Duke, Louisville, Florida St.
Work to do: Virginia Tech, N.C. State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Clemson

Virginia Tech has a solid record, but they played a 300+ ranked nonconference strength of schedule. That is not something you want to see on a bubble resume. 3 Q1 wins and 2 Q2 wins are respectable, but that’s all they’ve got on their resume. A win against Michigan St. is nice, but they’ll need more to compensate for their schedule.
N.C. State is really lacking top end wins. Only 1 game against Q1A (loss at Auburn), and only 3 Q1B wins coupled with a Q3 loss have N.C. State currently above the cut line, but they’ll want to keep winning to solidify that spot.
Notre Dame only owns a single Q1 win, and only a single Q2 win as well. When you also have a Q4 loss, you need several good wins to compensate.
Syracuse actually has a 4-1 road record, which may earn them extra points with the committee. That said, they only have 4 wins combined in quads 1 and 2 (and no games played against Q1A competition).
Pittsburgh is another team with some bad losses (vs Nicholls St. and Wake Forest) and not enough quality wins to compensate at the moment. They’re not dead, yet, but they don’t have a ton of opportunities to impress the committee left.
Virginia can’t possibly miss the tournament after winning the whole thing last year, right? With 2 Q3 losses to make up for, they need to start adding quality wins. The opportunities are there, with 4 games left against the trio of top ACC teams as well as 4 other games against fellow bubble teams. They just have to take advantage of their remaining opportunities.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but it takes quality wins to overcome bad losses. Clemson is another team that suffered disappointing losses and just doesn’t have enough positives to offset it, yet.

I’ve found myself wondering if the ACC has the quality wins available to elevate their bubble teams. The only solid home opportunities are against Duke, Louisville, and Florida St. the three clear best teams in the league. Otherwise teams will have to go on the road and beat fellow bubble teams in order to earn Q1 wins. Time will tell, but this could be a lean year for the ACC.

Weekend Games:
Virginia Tech at Boston College (Q3)
N.C. State at Georgia Tech (Q2A opportunity)
Notre Dame at Florida St. (Q1A opportunity)
Syracuse vs Pittsburgh (Q2B opportunity)
Pittsburgh at Syracuse (Q1B opportunity)
Virginia at Wake Forest (Q2B opportunity)
Clemson at Louisville (Q1A opportunity)

Big Twelve
Locks: Kansas, Baylor, West Virginia
Should be in: Oklahoma, Texas Tech
Work to do: Texas, TCU, Oklahoma St.

The B12 is one of the easier conferences to evaluate, as they have 3 teams in the top 10 of the NET rankings, which will be safely in the tournament, and several other teams that will be in the hunt, but only 1 combined bad loss (Iowa St. vs Florida A&M).

Oklahoma has a respectable 2 quad 1 wins and 4 quad 2 wins at this point in the season. If they can avoid any bad losses and add a couple more quality wins, they’ll be safe.
Texas Tech is just lacking a few quality wins as well. They have strong metrics (a top 25 team in KenPom rankings), but they have only 1 quad 1 win, 2 quad 2 wins. Putting together a good conference campaign should help seal a bid for Tech.
Texas again is just lacking good wins. They have holy two total quad 1 and quad 2 wins.
TCU still has no quad 1 victories. Until they start accumulating impressive victories there isn’t much more to say.
Oklahoma St. has a prohibitive NET ranking of 83, which is currently the biggest obstacle. They’ve got a Q1 win after beating Houston on the road, but 0-7 in their other Q1 games has limited their position on the S-curve.
Weekend Games:
Oklahoma vs Mississippi St. (Q2A opportunity)
Texas Tech vs Kentucky (Q1B opportunity)
Texas vs LSU (Q1B opportunity)
TCU at Arkansas (Q1A opportunity)
Oklahoma St. at Texas A&M (Q3)

Southeastern Conference
Locks: Auburn, LSU, Kentucky
Should be in: Arkansas, Florida
Work to do: Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi St.

Arkansas has avoided bad losses, currently finds itself on the 8/9 line by default, as they really don’t have many quality wins to move any higher, but there aren’t enough quality resumes at this point to push them further down despite having only a single quad 1 win.
Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi St. all have 3 or less quad 1 & quad 2 wins combined. They’ll need to take advantage of their remaining opportunities to make significant moves into (or within) the bracket.
Weekend Games:
Arkansas vs TCU (Q2B opportunity)
Florida vs Baylor (Q1A opportunity)
Tennessee at Kansas (Q1A opportunity)
Alabama vs Kansas St. (Q3)
Mississippi St. vs Oklahoma (Neutral, Q1B opportunity)

Pacific Twelve
Locks: Oregon, Colorado
Should be in: Arizona, Stanford, USC
Work to do: Arizona St., Washington

Arizona has a great computer profile. A NET of 9 is fantastic, and they are rated 12th on KenPom. However, they are only 1-3 against quad 1 and 2-2 against quad 2. Without adding some substance, this is still a questionable resume.
Stanford is also in pretty good shape, but 1-3 in Q1 and 2-0 in Q2 leave some room for doubt if they were to struggle down the stretch.
USC already has 3 quad 1 wins, 4 quad 2 wins, but a lower NET of 46 and a quad 3 loss keep this team from being a lock.
Arizona St. is winless against quad 1, so if they can win a few games against the top of the league, it would go a long way for this profile.
Washington is sliding, and may find themselves out of consideration if they cannot turn it around. Losers in 6 of their last 8, and now without the services of PG Quade Green, they’ll need to show the committee they are deserving down the stretch.
Weekend Games:
Arizona at Arizona St. (Q1B opportunity)
Stanford at USC (Q1B opportunity)
USC vs Stanford (Q1B opportunity)
Arizona St. vs Arizona (Q1A opportunity)
Washington at Colorado (Q1A opportunity)

Atlantic Ten
Locks: Dayton
Work to do: VCU, Richmond, Rhode Island, Saint Louis

The A10 is likely to see its bids fluctuate throughout the rest of the season. With 4 teams on my S-curve between positions 47 and 57, we’ll likely see movement in and out of the bracket every week.
The A10 bubble teams will likely either need to perform well against the other bubble teams or beat Dayton.

West Coast
Locks: Gonzaga
Work to do: BYU, Saint Mary’s

BYU and Saint Mary’s are probably safe, but the only way to lock up a bid is going to be to win against Gonzaga.
Weekend Games:
BYU at San Francisco (Q2A opportunity)
Saint Mary’s at Loyola Marymount (Q3)