Today’s Bracketology… Bubble Teams need to Learn from Omar…You come at the King…You Best Not Miss
Today’s SF and QF games feature 5 teams who got wins yesterday to help their bubble causes (St. John’s and Pittsburgh beat fellow bubble teams Seton Hall and Wake Forest respectively) facing likely #1 seeds or teams still in contention for a #1 spot in NCAA tournament looking to add a conference tournament title to go along with their regular season conference title.
Michigan State vs Purdue (Big Ten QF, Noon ET, BTN)
Mississippi State v Tennessee (SEC QF, 1PMET, ESPN)
St. John’s vs UCONN (Big East SF, 530PMET, FOX)
Pittsburgh vs North Carolina (ACC SF, 7PMET, ESPN)
Oregon vs Arizona (Pac 12 SF, 8PMET, Pac 12 Network)
A win today for any of these bubble teams likely will cement their place in the field. Pittsburgh and Oregon are predicted out of the field by most brackets in the Bracket Matrix so could need two more wins and the ACC and Pac 12 tournament title to earn their ticket to the Field of 68.
As of today 45 teams need to win their tourney to gain a bid tournament. 25 of those teams come from 9 one bid conferences (it is an odd number because Tarleton State #2 in WAC is not eligible for postseason due to the stupid 5 year transition rule)
The other 25 bid stealers or as I like to call them bid earners who could take an AL bubble spot and give their a league a second bid
Atlantic 10 (4 teams) ✅EARNED AN EXTRA BID
A10 earned an extra spot yesterday as VCU, St. Joe’s, Duquense, and St. Bonaventure all beat the top 4 teams in the league who had a double bye into the QFs. Duquense will be looking to end a 47 year NCAA Tournament drought while VCU’s Ryan Odom could be the 6th coach to take VCU Rams to the NCAA Tournament in last 20 years.
AAC (7 teams) Everyone but Florida Atlantic
AAC QFs begin today. Regular season champ South Florida Bulls likely needs to win the AAC tournament while 2023 Final Four Florida Atlantic Owls is #2 seed. Note the committee will operate until South Florida Bulls loses with South Florida in the field because USF was the conference champ (my bracketology below has FAU in as auto bid). Since the AAC Championship is Sunday there is a chance there will likely two or three brackets into Sunday afternoon as per usual case so the committee should have a real sense of the last at-large team in the field. To solidify their AL chances Florida Atlantic likely wants to win their QF matchup today vs North Texas (7PMET, ESPNU)
ACC (3 teams) NC State plus bubble teams Virginia and Pittsburgh
NC State beat Duke to make the semifinals and continue their ACC Tournament run. NCAA Director of Media Coordination/Statistics David Worlock made a public service announcement on X about teams that lose in conference tourney and winning the NCAA tournament so the 2024 NCAA Tournament might be a good time not to pick Duke in your bracket.
Bubble teams Virginia and Pittsburgh might want to win the tournament to avoid first Four in Dayton or possibly out of the field and more on Virginia’s current position further down.
Pac 12 (2 teams) - Oregon plus bubble team Colorado
Colorado has a really high NET of 26 but has two wins against the projected field Washington State and SWAC regular season champ Grambling State (who still has to win 2 more games to make NCAA Tournament for first time ever). I am certainly intrigued if Colorado gets in the field where they would be placed. Colorado might want to solidify their spot by beating Washington State again tonight (1030 PMET, FS1)
Big Ten (2 teams)- Indiana and Ohio State are both in the QFS.
Indiana will need to win Big Ten tournament but Ohio State is a bubble team that can likely play their way in without winning Big Ten. Ohio State has wins over Purdue, Alabama earlier in the season and if they beat Illinois today they become a much more intriguing at large candidate especially under interim head coach Jake Diebler (6-1 record at coach)
MWC (2 teams) - Bubble teams New Mexico and Colorado State
SEC (2 teams) - Bubble teams Mississippi State and Texas A&M
All four teams have done enough this season to solidify at an at-large berth but with A10 earning another bid, and the AAC, ACC, and Pac 12 currently at 50% chance or higher of an earning an extra bid they might all want another win.
YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME…
Herm Edwards - “That is the great thing about sports - YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME”
Virginia beat Boston College last night in Overtime and most bracketologists have Virginia in the Field of 68 laying out they needed to win that game to get in the field. That’s not how the committee works - elimination games are not a thing. Virginia now will play NC State now in the ACC SFs after NC State has won 3 ACC tournament games (beating Louisville in Kenny Payne’s final game, demolishing Syracuse and ending their NCAA Tourney aspirations, and upsetting Duke) but the BAD NEWS for the second straight opponent Virginia gets a non NCAA Tournament team: Boston College and NC State and not a Top 25 team: Clemson and Duke.
Virginia might now need to WIN THE GAME vs NC State (930 PMET, ESPN2) to solidify their place in the NCAA Tournament because a loss to NC State could hurt their resume (NET, losses to teams not under consideration for NCAAT) as they are being compared with bubble teams for the final at-large spots.
The Mountain West Conference has the same problem. Both- #6 New Mexico beat #3 Boise State and #7 Colorado State beat #2 Nevada as they both advanced to the SFs of the Mountain West Conference and likely did enough for their at-large chances. However instead of playing a Top 25 team and top 3 team in the league in the semifinal- New Mexico and Colorado State will play each other after splitting the season series each winning at home. If both teams are still being compared to other bubble teams or each other on the bubble - the winner of tonight’s game (Midnight, CBS Sports Network) will have an advantage. New Mexico has a lot more to gain today with a win and making the Mountain West finals.