NCAA Tournament Watch: Locks, Bubble Teams and Out for Every Conference in America
With the regular season just about a month away from ending, we’ll be doing different running themes with the blog. Every Sunday I’ve been putting out bracketology – that will stay the same. As will Monday’s Contender Series. Tuesday we’ll focus on the NPOY race and talk about different players. I did a huge scouting report on Trae Young back in December so for the time being we’ll use that as his breakdown. We’ll get into some other things I’m often asked about including bubble teams so we’ll take a look at a handful of teams that are on the bubble, what they have done recently and what they likely need to do to make the NCAA Tournament.
We’re going to do this week a little bit differently. Instead of breaking down four different teams that are floating around the bubble we’ll take a look at the country as a whole. Who are the locks, bubble teams and out for every conference in America?
We’ll start with the one bid leagues. These are the ones that will be determined by conference tournaments so we’ll take a guess at who wins that. There are 21 one-bid conferences this year.
1. America East (Vermont)
2. Atlantic Sun (Florida Gulf Coast)
3. Big Sky (Montana)
4. Big South (Winthrop)
5. Big West (UC-Santa Barbara)
6. Colonial (Charleston)
7. Horizon (Northern Kentucky)
8. Ivy (Harvard)
9. MAAC (Canisius)
10. MAC (Buffalo)
11. MEAC (North Carolina A&T)
12. MVC (Loyola Chicago)
13. Northeast (Wagner)
14. OVC (Belmont)
15. Patriot (Bucknell)
16. Southern (East Tennessee State)
17. Southland (Stephen F. Austin)
18. SWAC (Texas Southern)
19. Summit (South Dakota State)
20. Sun Belt (Louisiana Lafayette)
21. WAC (New Mexico State)
Now that means there are 48 open spots for multi-bid leagues to send conference tournament champion and at-large teams. The way I’ll break these up are locks, comfortably in, bubble and out. Comfortably in basically means barring a collapse they are close to a lock, locks obviously are those just playing for seeding.
AAC
Locks: Cincinnati
Comfortably in: Wichita State
Bubble: SMU, Houston, Temple
Out: Tulsa, UCF, Memphis, UConn, Tulane, ECU, USF
The American finds itself battling for more than two bids again this year. Cincinnati is currently a lock for the NCAA Tournament and battling for a top-2/3 seed the rest of the year. Wichita should be in and a win over Cincinnati this week all but locks them into the NCAA Tournament. I think both SMU and Temple will miss the NCAA Tournament. SMU is getting killed right now without Shake Milton healthy while Temple just has too many terrible losses. Houston could move to comfortably in if it beats Cincinnati in Houston this week. It’s the last shot for a true quality win for Houston before the AAC Tournament.
A-10
Locks: URI
Bubble: St. Bonaventure
Out: Davidson, VCU, St. Louis, Dayton, Duquesne, Richmond, St. Joe’s, George Mason, UMass, Fordham, La Salle, George Washington
This league just stinks this year as it’s been talked about quite a bit. URI is trying to get into a top-5 seed, but with the league being so bad the lack of quality wins comes up for the Rams. St. Bonaventure is the only other team with a shot at the NCAA Tournament and even then they still have some serious work to do. They do have wins over Syracuse, Vermont, Maryland and Buffalo in the nonconference, but also lost to Niagara. St. Bonaventure has a chance to really be squarely on the bubble with a win over URI on Friday. If it loses that game it comes down to the A-10 Tournament for this league to send two teams.
ACC
Locks: Virginia, Duke, UNC, Clemson
Comfortably in: Miami, Florida State
Bubble: Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Louisville, NC State, Notre Dame
Out: Boston College, Pitt, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech
The toughest thing to do here is look at the bubble teams vs the comfortably in teams. Virginia Tech has the best chance to move to the comfortably in spot as they have a win at Virginia and home vs UNC. The Hokies still get Duke twice to go with Clemson, Louisville and Miami. As long as they don’t lose all of them, they’ll be comfortably in. I’d bet that NC State and Louisville likely get in as well to the NCAA Tournament, with one of them playing in the first four. Notre Dame can really afford just one more loss the rest of the way, which is actually reasonable looking at the schedule. Notre Dame already has 8 conference losses but end with Boston College, Miami, Wake, Pitt and Virginia. Go 4-1 there and they’ll right back squarely on the bubble heading into the ACC Tournament. Louisville and Syracuse will be fascinating to me. Neither team has that marquee win, although Syracuse did beat Louisville. It just feels like they’ll play in the ACC Tournament as a de facto survive and advance to the NCAA Tournament game.
Big 12
Locks: Kansas, Texas Tech, West Virginia
Comfortably in: Oklahoma
Bubble: TCU, Texas, Kansas State, Baylor, Oklahoma State
Out: Iowa State
I know people like to bash the Big 12 because of what happened that first weekend in the NCAA Tournament a couple of years ago when a bunch of them were upset as No. 3 seeds, but this is the best conference in America. I’ve talked about it before, but when the ‘easiest’ road win is supposed to be at Hilton, it’s a damn good conference. I talked about how WVU should have been in the reveal on Sunday, so I’m moving them into the lock position and Texas Tech and Kansas are both battling for a No. 1 seed. I moved Oklahoma down to the comfortably in spot, although they could be a lock. If the Sooners lose 4 of 5 down the stretch, they’d finish with 17 wins and a 7-11 conference record. Even with that, I went back a couple years ago and found that Oklahoma State made the NCAA Tournament as a 9 seed with an 18-14 record and 8-10 in Big 12 play. I’d guess out of the bubble teams, 3 get in with TCU, Texas and Baylor being the likely picks. Baylor has bounced back nicely after a 4 game losing streak earlier in the year. They’ve now won 4 in a row including over Kansas and at Texas.
Big 10
Locks: Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State
Comfortably in: Michigan
Bubble: Nebraska, Penn State
Out: Maryland, Indiana, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Rutgers, Illinois
Really it’s just going to come down to seeding for the top-3 teams and then can Nebraska or Penn State sneak into the tournament? We’ll focus on the bubble here, since everything else is pretty much set in stone. Nebraska fans have been screaming for a couple weeks now, and yes what Tim Miles has done this year is damn impressive. But, where’s the marquee win? The best win they have is home vs Michigan. They don’t have a quadrant 1 win. Nebraska also doesn’t have a quality opponent to close the season, making it tough to get that marquee win or roll some quality wins while other bubble teams will be doing just that. Nebraska is currently the No. 4 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. That would be ideal as it would give them games against Michigan and Ohio State to get to the Big 10 Tournament. You win those two games, you’re in. As for Penn State, it ends with Ohio State, Purdue and Michigan. Get a win there to go with the road win at Ohio State and they are getting closer to the bubble. The loss to Rider and lack of quality nonconference wins will ultimately hurt the Lions though.
Big East
Locks: Villanova, Xavier, Creighton
Comfortably in: Seton Hall
Bubble: Providence, Butler, Marquette
Out: Georgetown, DePaul, St. John’s
The most intriguing part of this conference is seeing if Xavier can finally beat Villanova for a Big East title. We’ll figure that out on Saturday in Cincinnati. As for the rest, I’ll take a minute on St. John’s here. What the Johnnies have done the last 10+ days is downright impressive. But this is still a team that started 0-11 in conference play. Even if they win out 7-11 in the Big East leaves you on the outside of the bubble heading to Big East Tournament play. Butler is in an intriguing spot to me. The Bulldogs just took a horrendous home loss to Georgetown to push their record to 7-7 in the Big East. Luckily they end home to Providence and Creighton before going to St. John’s and Seton Hall. A 2-2 record there and they’ll stay safely in due to the win over Nova and neutral court win over Ohio State. Providence also recently took a downright terrible loss at home to DePaul. The Friars need to pull out a win over Villanova/Xavier/Seton Hall to feel better, but at 7-5 in the conference they should finish with a .500 record. The nonconference could end up hurting Providence if it falls to 8-10 in Big East play. I’d guess the Big East gets 6 in.
Conference-USA
Locks: None
Comfortably in: None
Bubble: Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State
Out: Old Dominion, Marshall, UTSA, North Texas, UAB, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, FIU, FAU, UTEP, Rice, Charlotte
This could and probably should be a two-bid league. Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee will be sweating out the bubble for whoever doesn’t win the conference tournament. MTSU has a win at WKU already to go with road wins at Vandy and Murray State while they only have one sort of bad loss at Marshall. Western is a little bit more all over the place. The Hilltoppers have the neutral court win over Purdue, which right now is one of the more impressive wins of the season. They also have a neutral court win over SMU from the Battle 4 Atlantis. However, they have losses to Ohio and Missouri State, which aren’t great. What’s going to be brutal is if WKU just misses the NCAA Tournament because of that atrocious call to end the Wisconsin game. These two teams play again on March 1.
Mountain West Conference
Locks: None
Comfortably in: Nevada
Bubble: Boise State
Out: UNLV, Fresno State, Wyoming, Utah State, San Diego State, Air Force, Colorado State, San Jose State
Nevada is one of the best teams that people don’t talk about enough. They are top-20 in KenPom, a ranked team and filled with high-major talent. They did just suffer a home loss to UNLV, but the committee will likely factor in the fact Caleb Martin missed that game. The Wolf Pack are a blown lead at Texas Tech from being a damn near lock as well. They do have the home win over URI to go along with the home win over Boise State. A road win tonight over Boise should keep Nevada on the right side of the bubble barring a collapse. As for Boise, the best thing happening for them i Oregon getting better and better in the Pac-12 considering they have a road win there. I think both teams should make the tournament, but keep an eye on Caleb Martin’s health.
Pac-12
Locks: Arizona
Comfortably in: Arizona State
Bubble: Washington, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Utah
Out: Washington State, Oregon State, Cal, Colorado, Stanford
The Pac-12 might be one of the more entertaining ones not because of great basketball, but rather because any of these teams can lose on any given night. Arizona is the most talented team in the conference, but we see them lose focus and get smashed at home by UCLA. We saw Stanford get hot to start the Pac-12 season and now they are 7-6 in conference play. The crazy thing right now is there are only three teams with a losing conference record. USC is the fascinating team to me in this league. They are currently 8-5 in conference play losing three in a row at UCLA, Arizona and Arizona State. They do have the neutral court win over New Mexico State but lost the other 3 important nonconference games. I’m going to guess that USC gets in along with either Washington or UCLA to give the conference four bids.
SEC
Locks: Auburn, Tennessee
Comfortably in: Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, Alabama
Bubble: Arkansas, Texas A&M, Mississippi State
Out: Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Georgia, LSU
Auburn and Tennessee the two locks to make the NCAA Tournament per usual here in the SEC. Meanwhile, I want to take a minute to talk about Kentucky. People have been asking how close is Kentucky to the bubble and right now they are still a 6/7 seed. The win at West Virginia and home wins over Louisville, Vermont, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech are holding weight right now. The Wildcats are 6-6 in conference play and end with trips to Auburn, Florida and Arkansas while hosting Ole Miss, Alabama and Missouri. Win the three home games and they are in at that 6/7 seed. If they can steal a road win they could lock in a 5/6 seed potentially, especially if the win is over Auburn tonight. In order for them to miss the tournament they’d probably have to go 2-4 and lose the first game of the SEC Tournament. Texas A&M is another interesting one. I think they get in the NCAA Tournament thanks to the nonconference and now win at Auburn, but the recent suspensions to Jay Jay Chandler and JJ Caldwell make that roster thin especially with the injury to Duane Wilson. I’m going to guess seven teams get in from the SEC, most of them falling between the 6-10 seed lines.
WCC
Locks: Gonzaga
Comfortably in: St. Mary’s
Bubble: None
Out: BYU, Pacific, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, Portland, Pepperdine
Gonzaga should have been in the top-16 reveal after it got the win at St. Mary’s on Saturday. The Bulldogs have neutral court wins over Ohio State and Texas while also getting Creighton at home this year. The loss to San Diego State isn’t ideal but it isn’t going to cost them a bid or anything like that. As for St. Mary’s the nonconference wasn’t great thanks to the losses to Washington State and Georgia, but they did beat New Mexico State and got the win at Gonzaga. That should keep them in that 8/9 seed line area, as long as they don’t fall apart down the stretch here.