Automatic Bids (14 of 32 decided)
- Morehead State, Ohio Valley
- Longwood, Big South
- Drake, Missouri Valley
- Stetson, Atlantic Sun
- James Madison, Sun Belt
- Samford, Southern Conference
- Charleston, CAA
- Oakland, Horizon
- Wagner, Northeast
- St. Mary’s, West Coast
- South Dakota State, Summit
- McNeese State, Southland
- Colgate, Patriot
- Montana State, Big Sky
#1 Seeds
Carolina winning along with Tennessee and Arizona losing would seem to lock up the last #1 seed for the Tar Heels. The only scenario I am wondering about is if Carolina loses today and Iowa State wins the Big 12, do the Cyclones have a chance? Based on resume, I would say they do.
Bubble Watch
If you read yesterday’s update, you saw that I had 11 teams on the bubble competing for 7 bids. Of those 11 teams, 3 of them won their way off the bubble yesterday: Colorado, Mississippi State, and Texas A&M. And one team, Ohio State, lost its way off the bubble.
Just to level set us, here are the teams I consider to be locks for an at-large bid at this point:
- Big 12 (9): Houston, Iowa State, Baylor, Kansas, BYU, Texas Tech, Texas, TCU, Oklahoma
- Big 10 (6): Purdue, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan State, Northwestern
- Big East (3): UConn, Marquette, Creighton
- ACC (3): North Carolina, Duke, Clemson
- SEC (8): Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Mississippi State
- Pac-12 (3): Arizona, Washington State, Colorado
- Mountain West (5): San Diego State, Nevada, Utah State, Boise State, Colorado State
- West Coast (1): Gonzaga
- A-10 (1): Dayton
- American (1): Florida Atlantic
That’s a total of 40 bids. For all but the West Coast and A-10, I am assuming that the automatic bid will come from this group. So subtract one automatic bid for the other eight conferences, and that leaves 32 at-large bids locked out of 36. So that leaves four bids remaining.
I have seven teams realistically competing for those last four bids: St. John’s, New Mexico, Pitt, Virginia, Indiana State, Seton Hall, and Providence.
Of those teams, New Mexico helped itself the most yesterday with another Quad 1 win over Colorado State. New Mexico is also the only team on that list who is still playing; they can erase all doubt by beating San Diego State today in the Mountain West final.
St. John’s, Pitt, and Providence had “good losses”, if there is such a thing, each losing to a Top 10 team. St. John’s and Pitt looked really good in losing, Providence less so.
Seton Hall and Indiana State did not play.
And Virginia, of course, lost a heartbreaker to NC State.
Yesterday, I ranked them this way:
- St. John’s
- Seton Hall
- Virginia
- Pitt
- CUT LINE
- Indiana State
- New Mexico
- Providence
After yesterday’s games, I’m going with:
- New Mexico – 90% chance
- St. John’s – 85% chance
- Seton Hall – 60% chance
- Pitt – 55% chance
- CUT LINE
- Indiana State – 45% chance
- Virginia – 40% chance
- Providence – 25% chance
As with any year, one of the important factors will be how much weight the committee give to the “eye test” vs. the resume. In particular, St. John’s and Pitt are certainly playing like tournament teams, and their predictive metrics are very good. But their resumes, especially St. John’s, are not as impressive as the eye test.
The other wildcard is what the committee does with Indiana State. As we’ve discussed before, comparing a team like the Sycamores with a major conference team is really an impossible task. It comes down to a decision based on philosophy and what the committee wants to reward. If you’re wondering if there is precedent for a team like Indiana State getting an at-large bid, look no further than another Missouri Valley team, Drake, in 2021. They received an at-large bid with a resume that looks very similar to the Sycamores.
The other thing to watch is bid-stealers that can reduce the number of available bids. There are three. NC State in the ACC; Oregon in the Pac-12; and anybody other that Florida Atlantic in the American. If any of those teams gets an automatic bid, somebody gets bumped. My probabilities above are based on the assumption that nobody gets bumped.
The main disagreements I have with Lunardi are with New Mexico and Pitt. Lunardi has New Mexico as the last team in, still below St. John’s and Seton Hall. But with two Quad 1 wins in two days, I think they are a little better than that.
Lunardi has Pitt still behind Virginia and Indiana State. If you want to put them behind Indiana State, fine, but I don’t see putting them behind Virginia. I think their resume is better than Virginia (arguable, but that’s my opinion) and they certainly look better than Virginia right now.
Keep in mind that Lunardi is also assuming that South Florida is getting the automatic bid from the American, so he is assuming one less at-large bid available than I am.
One other thing to watch is that in past years, it seems the committee pays less attention to what happens in conference tournaments than you might think. It’s as if they have their bracket set by Friday and can’t be bothered to change it based on what happens Saturday and Sunday. I wonder if that is factoring into Lunardi’s thinking in terms of not putting New Mexico higher.
Automatic Bids to be Decided Today:
- America East, Vermont vs. UMass-Lowell, 11 AM
- ACC, UNC vs. NC State, 8:30 PM
- Big East, UConn vs. Marquette, 6:30 PM
- Big 12, Houston vs. Iowa State, 6:00 PM
- Big West, Long Beach State vs. UC-Davis, 9:30 PM
- Conference USA, UTEP vs. Western Kentucky, 8:30 PM
- MAAC, St. Peter’s vs. Fairfield, 7:30 PM
- MAC, Kent State vs. Akron, 7:30 PM
- MEAC, Howard vs. Delaware State, 1:00 PM
- Mountain West, San Diego State vs. New Mexico, 6:00 PM
- Pac-12, Oregon vs. Colorado, 9:00 PM
- SWAC, Grambling vs. Texas Southern, 9:30 PM
- WAC, Grand Canyon vs. Texas-Arlington, 11:30 PM