The Bubble

[jncuse]

The Bubble is really weak this year, although we seem to say that every year... so perhaps its normal. But at least the bubble picture is wide open as of now. It's almost too difficult to separate.

I know will try to exclude or include teams because they are in Conference "X"... but to me it is always silly to include a bubble team over another because they played in a certain conference. After all, the strenght or weakness of the teams they faced have aleady impacted their resume, so why punish or reward the teams again.

So Pitt lost tonight. Are they on the bubble. Maybe not, but not a lock either... although lose to Clemson and first round of ACC and they will be sweating hard.

Here are the bubble teams according to the Matrix (last updated on Saturday). So there has been some change.

I included all teams that are off at least one of the 68 bracket

IN (out of 68)
St. Joseph's 67
Baylor 67
Oregon 66
Xavier 65
Oklahoma St 65
Cal 63
Minnesota 60
BYU 56
Arkansas 40
Missouri 29

OUT
Providence 27
Tennessee 21
Florida St 15
St. John's 8
Nebraska 7
Dayton 6
Georgetown 6 (although older brackets)
Richmond 1


Notable Wins or Losses since Saturday that are not on considered in Matrix
Xavier lost at Seton Hall
Oklahoma St won vs Kansas St
Pitt loss vs NC St
Dayton won vs UMass
Xavier won vs Creighton
Oklahoma St won vs Kansas

Obviously Oklahoma St solidified itself the most since Saturday and is off the bubble for now. Pitt may not be on it, but has to be pretty damn close.



Any teams that you think should be in the IN category instead of OUT or vice versa? Remember 68 teams are required.

 

[jncuse]

Bubble Busters

One of the interesting stories of 2013 was that Middle Tennessee St received an at-large bid after losing in the Sun Belt Confernece.

The resume of Middle Tennessee St was as follows:
28-5
RPI 33
1-3 vs RPI Top 100
2 Bad Losses

Best Win was vs #48 RPI Old Miss
Lost to Tourney Teams on the Road - Belmont, Akron, Florida


Are there any Middle Tennessee St type teams in 2014?

Looking at the team's with top 50 RPI's, and the one team with a stunning 23-2 record in Steve Austin.

Southern Miss

I suspect bubble teams will prefer that they win the conference tourney. Middle Tennessee St (now in CUSA) and LTech are solid competition.

23-5
RPI 36
1-1 Top 50 (win at North Dakota St
4-3 Top 100

It's a pretty empty resume, but 4-3 vs top 100 is OK for this bubble.

Bubble Buster - Possibly

North Dakota St

20-6
RPI 41
No top 50 wins
3 top 100 wins - Towson, Delware, Western Michigan

Bubble Buster - No

Toledo

23-5
RPI 42
No Top 50 Wins
4-3 vs Top 100 (Best win #88 Ohio)

Bubble Buster - No

Green Bay

21-5
RPI 50
One Top 50 Win (Virginia)
4-3 vs Top 100
If they lose it would be 3 bad losses

Bubble Buster - Possibly. That Virginia win goes a long way.

Steve Austin

23-2
RPI 69
0 Top 50 Wins (lost at Texas)
1-1 Top 100 (win vs #92 Towson)

An empty resume, but they have won 21 in a row. Just not enough quality to pull off a stunner.

-------

I tend to believe that the commitee may look at rating systems for these type of teams as they can't compare apples and oranges in terms of schedule -- sort of as a way to legitimize the team,

In KP - Green Bay 50, Steve Austin 63, Southern Miss 68, North Dakota St 71, Toledo 104, Last year Middle Tennessee St was 50 as well.

Basically none of them stand out at you that they must be included. Although at #50, is good enough to legitimize this vs other bubble teams.

 

[Alsacs]

Pitt has no business being in the field right now. I would put teams like St. Joe's, Dayton, Providence, Xavier, Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Florida State in before them. Pitt played Cincinnati, Penn State, Stanford, Texas Tech and scrubs for their non-conference schedule and their best ACC win was @NC State, sweeping Maryland, and Clemson none of whom are NCAA teams. They lost to Cincinnati and won the 3 other non-conference. If Stanford at Barclay's is your best win overall and you play in a major conference with ample opportunities for wins they should be punished.

 

[jncuse]

Pitt has no business being in the field right now. I would put teams like St. Joe's, Dayton, Providence, Xavier, Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Florida State in before them. Pitt played Cincinnati, Penn State, Stanford, Texas Tech and scrubs for their non-conference schedule and their best ACC win was @NC State, sweeping Maryland, and Clemson none of whom are NCAA teams. They lost to Cincinnati and won the 3 other non-conference. If Stanford at Barclay's is your best win overall and you play in a major conference with ample opportunities for wins they should be punished.

As I noted in another thread... in comparison to the teams out on the matrix.. I prefer Pitt just slightly. The teams just out have one more top 50 win, but more bad losses, and weaker in the 51-100.

But they should be sweating.

 

[jncuse]

Another kick in the ass to us Syracuse fans tonight.

Georgetown 75
Creighton 63

Georgetown is now back on the bubble. What a strange resume they have.
I am assuming they will lose at Villanova, to complete their regular season resume/

W-L: 17-13
BE record: 8-10
RPI - low to mid 50's
Top 50 ; 5-5 ( Creighton, Mich St, VCU, Kanas St, Xavier)
51-100: 2-4
Bad Losses: 3 (Seton Hall (2), Northeastern - RPI #224)
OOC SOS : 25

They have the top 50 wins that most bubble teams do not.. played a really good OOC schedule (and won 3 top times)... but were probably the worst team on the bubble in terms of performance against non tourney teams.

Fascinating resume.

 

[jncuse]

Now Georgetown is a good team to compare to Pitt. Because unlike teams like Providence, St. John's, and Tennessee, they just don't have 1 more top 50 win... they have 4 more of them. But they also do worse on the bottom than the others/

I think the sheer number of top 50 victories is enough for me to put G'Town over Pitt.

 

[jncuse]

Baylor beat Iowa St... 74-61.

They were comfortably on the good side of the bubble as of today, but this win will probably make them a lock.

6-8 vs top 50
1 bad loss

Good enough this year

 

[jncuse]

Biggest game tonight so far in terms of the bubble

Nebraska 70 at Indiana 60

Top 100 Road Win - always good for a bubble team. Nebraska ensures it will finish above .500 in B10, and is now 10-7. Probably in as of now, but a win Wisconsin at home on Sunday would make it a lock.

 

[Trueblue25]

The University at Buffalo.

 

[Briancuse]

Every year it seems people say that the bubble is weak this year, is there ever a strong year for bubble teams?

 

[ImperialOrange]

They really didn't need to add 4 teams and the play in round. I think its insulting when a conference champs has to play in to the dance.

 

[jncuse]

They really didn't need to add 4 teams and the play in round. I think its insulting when a conference champs has to play in to the dance.

But now they don't have to "play in" anymore. It's just called round one... a not so clever way they tried to get around the slight to those teams.

I am still not use to people referring to Thurs/Fri as round 2 games. If someone says Syracuse will struggle in its round three game... I instinctively think of the sweet 16 game for example.

 

[jncuse]

Couple of other significant games today. (Big wins / bad losses)

Dayton 72 at St. Louis 67
Colorado 59 at Stanford 56

A huge win for Dayton on the road over the struggling Billikens. They are probably on the right side of the bubble. The A-10 looks like it might be getting 6 teams in the tourney.

Colorado was in before the game today, but they were struggling, Big top 50 road win. Stanford stays In with the loss, but moves down the bubble, and is now below Colorado.

Quite a few other bubble teams won, but it was expected wins -- will not really help resume, but at least you avoid a bad loss.

 

[jncuse]

Hard to believe that the Pac-12 may actually be getting 7 teams in the tourney. But that is why the OOC is so important as a conference. It sets up more top 50 wins in January, Feb, and March for its conference members.

Although many of its members are on low seed lines or the bubble - Colorado, Stanford, Oregon, Cal.

 

[jncuse]

If you are on the bubble now you can't lose to a sub 50 at home. And Cal just did to Utah.

Utah is better than its RPI... but even pitt was embarrassed by its ooc schedule.

Cal is probably out as of now.. p12 is back to 6. Going to be quite a few head to head bubble matchups next week.

 

[NineOneSeven]

If you are on the bubble now you can't lose to a sub 50 at home. And Cal just did to Utah.

Utah is better than its RPI... but even pitt was embarrassed by its ooc schedule.

Cal is probably out as of now.. p12 is back to 6. Going to be quite a few head to head bubble matchups next week.

Love it! Well, watching the other teams at least. Sucks when we are on that bubble.

 

[KaiserUEO]

isnt the bubble called...'The Boeheim'???

 

[rstone7727]

I guess it's fun to try to get this ironed out now but there is a huge monkey wrench waiting in the conference tournaments.

 

[pearl31]

If you are on the bubble now you can't lose to a sub 50 at home. And Cal just did to Utah.

Utah is better than its RPI... but even pitt was embarrassed by its ooc schedule.

Cal is probably out as of now.. p12 is back to 6. Going to be quite a few head to head bubble matchups next week.

Cal is a very disappointing team. No way they should be losing all the games they have with the talent and coach they have.

 

[jncuse]

As of last Saturday, Pitt was in 68 of 68 brackets. They are now down to 90 out of 96, so they are losing some support after that NC St loss.

They are currently the 6th last team in per the matrix (which means they are not far from out, because the bubble is tight). As seen by the comments below on Cal and Dayton, two results can rocket you up or down.

Last Teams In (out of 96)
Stanford - 92
Xavier - 91
Pitt - 90
Arkansas - 88
BYU - 80
Tennessee - 52
Dayton - 48
Providence - 47

It would be a nice little advantage for Dayton to play a "play-in" game on its home court. It would be nice to see Pitt or Georgeotwn get that game if they do get in.

Last Teams Out -
Cal - 53 (Note that this total includes some old brackets, they are out on most newer ones)
Minnesota - 35
Missouri - 32
Nebraska - 18
Florida St - 16
Georgetown - 15
St. John's - 5

I have bolded the teams that have moved from in to out in the last 5 days. As you can see it does not take long to move up and down the list - one game changes a lot of things. Cal was on 92% of the brackets last Saturday - now it is 19% of the brackets that were submitted today (8 of 43). That was caused by losing at Arizona St (blown opp).. but moreso by losing at home vs Utah.

Dayton moved up from 9% of the brackets last Saturday, to 81% of the brackets that were submitted today. That was based on two wins against RPI top 30 teams (St Louis and UMass).

The question is - based on the large movements above, are people overreacting too much on the most recent event to try to separate this extremely tight bubble. I would say maybe a little bit for the most part I think its accurate.

 

[jncuse]

I have Georgetown in as of now. I would place them ahead of Providence even if Providence is 2 games ahead in a balanced schedule. The OOC was that much better for Georgetown. And they are the out team that I would consider over Pitt as well.

The bracket loves to separate the bubble on OOC SOS. They take it as their chance to speak out against scheduling. Georgetown has played 5 RPI top 40 teams on the road or neutral, and its OOC SOS is 26. Both great numbers.

 

[jncuse]

Key results from an interesting weekend.

Wins (Teams Moving up)

Nebraska wins over Wisconsin. I really want to see this team get in. It's just a nice story for a team that has not made it for a long time. Before today they were at 39% in -- it will have to be over 60% by tommorrow.

Tennessee destroys Missouri in a battle of bubble teams. Tennessee moves from in on 54% of brackets to in on 70% of brackets.

Oregon beats Arizona (clinches a bid IMO). They were basically in all brackets before Saturday, this clinched it.

St. John's wins at Marquette (Top 100 road win always good at this time of year - easy game to lose). No real benefit however - 5% to 6% of brackets.

Stanford wins vs Utah (Another Top 100 game that may have put them over the top) (basically stayed on 95% of brackets)

Pitt wins at Clemson (Top 100 Road Win - Easy game to lose). A tainted victory by a tainted team. Basically stayed on 93% of brackets. No real change with the win. The few that hold them out still want another top 50 victory.

Losses (Teams Moving Down)

Arkansas blown out at Alabama. Moved from 91% of brackets to 75% of brackets.

Missouri loses at Tennessee. Moved down from 33% of brackets to 14% of brackets.

Green Bay lost vs Milwaukee in Horizon Conference tourney. They are a potential bubble buster. How much will the win over Virginia be worth?

Florida St blew a major shot a big time scalp losing vs Syracuse. They needed this win to seriously get back in contention.


Teams Moving from Thursday to Saturday
Nebraska - IN
Providence - OUT

I was surprised so many people moved Providence out based on the loss at Creighton. It was a lost opportunity at a major scalp, but not a loss to be used against you either. Providence moved down from 49% to 24% - surprising to me. Georgetown had a similar type game vs Nova but basically held steady (16% to 20%).

 

[jncuse]

Does Green Bay deserve to get in as an at-large?

 

[pearl31]

Does Green Bay deserve to get in as an at-large?

No, I don't think so. Win over uva not enough.

 

[jncuse]

No, I don't think so. Win over uva not enough.

I tend to agree. I am always a person that wants to give mid-majors the benefit of the doubt on the bubble... 3-2 top 100, 1 top 50 win... but 3 bad losses is probably one too many.

They are probably the closest we have to a bubble buster from a lower tier conference this year.