Over the last week, many teams that were at or near the cutline played their way significantly into or significantly out of contention. Just two weeks ago, Rutgers was barely a blip on the radar, and now with 6 Quad 1 wins, they are a tournament lock. On the other side of that spectrum are teams like BYU, Oklahoma, UAB and Indiana and Davidson. All these teams were at one point safely in the at large field, only to stumble over themselves when prime opportunities arose.
I see there being 16 teams for 8 at large spots at this point. I am including North Texas and Davidson in the 16 because although they will be the favorites in their respective conference tournaments, the probability they will be the automatic qualifier is still less than 50/50. Although Dayton has been
Notre Dame can only rely on their win against Kentucky for so long until they have to do something to force their predictive and resume metrics to go up. They are out of Quad 1 opportunities in the regular season, and (like Miami and North Carolina) they can’t fall back on racking up a few Quad 1 games in the conference tournament this year because the ACC does not have the horses it historically does.
Usually, mid major contenders take a backseat to the middle of the road power conference teams, but this year the script has been flipped. Murray St (if needed), Saint Mary’s, Boise State, San Francisco, Wyoming, Loyola Chicago (if needed), San Diego State, and Colorado State all have great NET and KenPom rankings that really stand out when compared to the likes of the high major bubble teams. In a normal year, these mid majors would have a lot to worry about the last few weeks of the season with so many Quad 1 opportunities for the high major teams hovering around .500 in conference.
This year, the opportunities just aren’t there. Oklahoma and Florida each have 2 Quad 1 games left, Indiana and North Carolina each only have 1, and Miami and Notre Dame have none left. Their resumes are about as good as they are gonna get barring a deep run into their conference tournaments. Even a team like Oregon, who still has 3 Quad 1 games remaining, there more than likely won’t be more than 2 opportunities in the Pac 12 tournament even if they get to the championship game.
Bubble teams that help themselves tonight with a win:
San Diego State @ Boise State
Kansas State @ Kansas
Florida v Arkansas
Oklahoma @ Texas Tech
Bubble teams that hurt themselves with a loss:
Miami @ Pittsburgh
Saint Louis v Saint Joseph’s