March Madness 2017 bubble predictions: Assessing the final contenders for NCAA tournament bids
Selection Sunday is here. Finally. The selection committee has made all of its decisions, the bracket reveal is hours away, and soon enough, the field for the 2017 NCAA tournament will be set.
Sunday’s Atlantic 10 final was the last domino to fall on the bubble. Rhode Island, which was sitting right on the cut line, upset VCU to clinch an automatic bid. With that result, a detailed breakdown of the field reveals that, of the 36 at-large spots available, 32 appear to be locked up; four bids are still up for grabs, with nine teams hoping to snatch them and run to the Big Dance.
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With a few automatic bids still to be handed out on Sunday, here’s a look at how the field stands as of 3 p.m. ET on Selection Sunday:
Automatic qualifiers (32): Villanova, Gonzaga, Arizona, Wisconsin/Michigan, Iowa State, Duke, SMU/Cincinnati, Kentucky, Wichita State, Rhode Island, Middle Tennessee State, Princeton, UNC-Wilmington, Vermont, Nevada, East Tennessee State, Kent State, South Dakota State, Bucknell, Iona, Northern Kentucky, Florida Gulf Coast, Winthrop, Northern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, Mount St. Mary’s, North Carolina Central, Texas Southern, North Dakota, New Mexico State, UC Davis, Troy/Texas State
At-large locks (29): North Carolina, Kansas, Oregon, Arkansas, Louisville, UCLA, Butler, Notre Dame, Florida State, Baylor, West Virginia, Florida, Purdue, SMU/Cincinnati, Wisconsin/Michigan, Virginia, Minnesota, Creighton, Maryland, Miami, Dayton, St. Mary’s, VCU, Virginia Tech, Northwestern, Oklahoma State, South Carolina, Seton Hall, Providence
At-large near-locks (3): Marquette, Xavier, Michigan State
Bubble (9 teams for 4 spots): Vanderbilt, Syracuse, Kansas State, Wake Forest, Illinois State, USC, Illinois, California, Iowa
The above list is not in any order. The one below is. Here’s an educated guess at which of those nine teams the selection committee will place in the field, and which of those nine it will leave out:
IN
33. Vanderbilt | 19-15 | RPI: 38 | SOS: 1 | T50: 6-8 | T100: 11-14 | R/N: 8-10
No 15-loss team has ever made the NCAA tournament as an at-large. But that’s not a reason to keep Vandy out. On the contrary, it’s the only reason we feel the need to mention the Commodores here at all. Their record against the top 50 is better than some bubble teams’ records against he top 100. Outside of a loss at lowly Missouri, Vanderbilt’s résumé is as robust as bubble résumés come. In addition to three wins over Florida (RPI No. 8), its victory over Iowa State in the SEC/Big 12 challenge is looking better and better. So is a 13-point road victory over Arkansas. The Commodores are in.
34. USC | 24-9 | RPI: 41 | SOS: 71 | T50: 2-6 | T100: 6-8 | R/N: 10-6
The more you look at USC’s résumé, the more the Trojans’ look to be closer to Vanderbilt than the rest of the pack. A non-conference win over SMU is a huge plus; a November road win at Texas A&M shouldn’t be overlooked either, nor should a neutral site victory over BYU. USC went undefeated outside the Pac-12, and in conference play did about what you’d expect a bubble team to do. It got one massive win over UCLA, and suffered one rough (but semi-understandable) loss at Arizona State. A home loss to Cal doesn’t help, nor do two losses each to the Pac-12’s big three, but none of those scars are all that damaging. And when you consider that the Cal and Utah losses came without Bennie Boatwright, who missed all of December and January with an injury, USC feels even more like an NCAA tournament team.
35. Wake Forest | 19-13 | RPI: 39 | SOS: 17 | T50: 3-10 | T100: 8-13 | R/N: 8-10
Wake’s computer numbers are tidy. It only lost to one non-NCAA tournament team (though it lost twice to that team, Clemson). And to Danny Manning’s credit, he put together an extremely respectable non-conference schedule. But, as you’ll see below, Wake is the anti-Syracuse. Outside of a win over Louisville during the last week of the regular season, the Demon Deacons’ ledger of wins is pretty dry. Victories over Miami (home) and Virginia Tech (road) are nice, but don’t stand out. Wake, with a few exceptions, is the classic “beat who you should beat, lose to who you should lose to” team. With the bubble weaker than it has been in years, though, that might just be enough.
36. Syracuse | 18-14 | RPI: 84 | SOS: 58 | T50: 6-8 | T100: 8-9 | R/N: 2-11
No team has ever received an at-large bid with an RPI below 70, much less an RPI of 84. But perhaps no team has had as weird a résumé as Syracuse. The quality wins are plentiful: Duke; Virginia; Florida State; Miami. There’s also a defeat of fellow bubbler Wake Forest. But the bad losses are abundant too, and are a thorn in Jim Boeheim’s side. Syracuse lost non-conference games to St. John’s, Georgetown and UConn, all of which are outside the RPI top 100. It also lost ACC games to Boston College, Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh. The biggest blemish here, however, is the complete lack of anything impressive away from home. All but two of Syracuse’s wins came at the Carrier Dome. The Orange have enough top-end victories to sneak into the field, but they’re incredibly difficult to evaluate.
OUT
37. Kansas State | 20-13 | RPI: 57 | SOS: 38 | T50: 4-9 | T100: 6-11 | R/N: 8-8
Kansas State has four very impressive wins: At Oklahoma State, home against West Virginia, at Baylor, and over Baylor on a neutral floor. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, three of those four wins look significantly less impressive than they did a few weeks ago. Furthermore, the rest of K-State’s docket doesn’t give those four bullet points much support. That’s in part because Bruce Weber shot himself in the foot by putting together the 232nd-ranked non-conference schedule. Kansas State is certainly one of the 36 best teams in the at-large pool, but it just barely doesn’t have one of the 36 best résumés.
38. Illinois State | 26-6 | RPI: 33 | SOS: 125 | T50: 1-2 | T100: 2-4 | R/N: 12-6
The Redbirds haven’t lost to a team not named Wichita State since December. On the other hand, they have precisely one top-140 win since December, and have just two top-125 wins all season. It’s really tough to leave a team like Illinois State out, especially with all the program has been through in recent years, but ISU probably needed to go 27-5 or 28-4 against this schedule to get in. When you don’t play many high-profile games, you can’t afford to lose to teams like San Francisco, Tulsa and Murray State in non-conference play.
39. Iowa | 18-14 | RPI: 81 | SOS: 54 | T50: 5-7 | T100: 7-11 | R/N: 4-10
There’s a drop off after No. 38 in the minds of many, but if there’s one team that the committee could use to surprise us all, it’s probably Iowa. The Hawkeyes finished 10-8 in the Big Ten, and compiled a nice list of quality wins: home over Iowa State, Michigan and Purdue, on the road at Maryland and Wisconsin. Their RPI is Syracuse-level low, and non-conference losses to Omaha and Memphis aren’t pretty, but among the 10 teams considered here, only Vanderbilt and Syracuse have better records against the top 50. It wouldn’t be surprising to hear that the committee was at least discussing Iowa late into Saturday evening.
40. Illinois | 17-14 | RPI: 64 | SOS: 21 | T50: 4-9 | T100: 10-11 | R/N: 6-9
Illinois fired head coach John Groce Saturday, which tells you where athletic director Josh Whitman would have the Illini if he were a bracketologist. And Whitman would be spot on. Illinois was in the mix heading into the final weekend of the season. It had no bad losses and a bevy of decent wins. But a loss to Rutgers ruined the “no bad losses” argument, and a first-round Big Ten tournament exit likely eliminated the Illini from contention.
41. California | 21-12 | RPI: 53 | SOS: 41 | T50: 2-8 | T100: 6-12 | R/N: 6-9
Twenty-one wins in a major conference is usually enough, but not when a grand total of zero of those wins came over teams that will definitely make the 68-team field as at-larges. The bottom half of the Pac-12 was so desperately poor that it gutted Cal’s résumé, and when the Golden Bears failed to take advantage of all six of their chances against the trio of Oregon, Arizona and UCLA, their fate was probably sealed.
