One very good piece of news for USC basketball: Mountain West misery
The USC Trojans are in bubble trouble. They’re one of the first four teams out of the NCAA Tournament in ESPN’s latest bracketology forecast. This is what happens when a team loses to Oregon State, the ultimate bubble sin. USC committed a big no-no, and as a result, a team which was a No. 10 seed for the Big Dance is now on the wrong side of the cut line.
To be clear, USC has a lot of work to do. It starts with going at least 3-1 in these next four games against non-NCAA Tournament teams (Cal, Stanford, Colorado, Utah). USC will then need to beat Arizona State for sure, and it might need to beat Arizona as well. USC will need to win at least one game in the Pac-12 Tournament as well. Life just became a lot more difficult as a result of the OSU loss.
However, USC also needs help on the bubble. National results in other conferences need to give USC more margin for error. Is that happening? Generally, yes … and the Mountain West Conference is a great example.
In the past two weeks, Utah State and New Mexico have lost multiple games. Utah State failed to get a quality win at home versus San Diego State. It then lost at San Jose State. New Mexico has been blown out by Air Force and Wyoming in consecutive games. The Lobos’ profile took two massive hits, and what’s worse for the Mountain West is that with New Mexico’s NET ranking plunging, the other teams which beat UNM will also suffer in the NET rankings and the other metrics college basketball bracketologists are studying every day.
The Mountain West appeared to be a five-bid NCAA Tournament league two weeks ago. Now? Probably only three bids will come from the MWC.
USC might be able to jump into one of those last two slots, quite possibly at the First Four in Dayton.
