WEEKEND SUMMARY
Welcome to the home stretch of the regular season!
With the initial committee meetings in the books and the first hint of how the committee is viewing the top of the board, it’s time to adjust.
Upon review, no major surprises. An encouraging sign. Yet, still room to brush up on how they may see a few teams:
Purdue - The Boilermakers were a clean 2-seed for the committee, as you see above. I had them below Iowa State and as a 3-seed due to having an additional loss, but it was close. Now the Boilers have two additional losses when compared to the Cyclones, and are a clear 3-seed.
Wisconsin - The Committee was high on the Badgers and Greg Gaard’s bunch made them look wise by winning the game as mentioned earlier in Mackey. Now, the Badgers have a strong case to be the final 2-seed.
Arizona - A tad lower than we thought but ultimately the Wildcats were the last of the 3-seeds. Then, they of course took a home loss to Houston, furthering the complexities of a very-high caliber Wildcats team that owns a middling resume.
St. John’s - Included in the Top 16, Bracketeer had the Johnnies #17. So very close, and as the leaders of the Big East, I am kind of glad from the conference leader perspective to see SJU included. They go out and take care of Creighton on Sunday. Now a very secure 4-seed here.
Ole Miss - My biggest surprise of the reveal. Not that the Rebels were not included - it was in the part where NCAA Tournament Chairman, Bubba Cunningham, listed others considered. There was zero mention of the Rebs. A team with road wins over Alabama and Louisville at the top of its resume, I was pretty surprised. Like others above, things became more complicated with the Egg Bowl loss at home.
All and all, nothing major compared to other years. I believe the forecast is tweaked and ready to expand these decisions out for a full field.
CASE OF THE MONDAY's ON THE bUBBLE
The bubble picture is being dictated by the power conference contenders. They take on losses and make it more difficult to select them based on committee precedent since 2019 (when the NET era began).
Ohio State is the ultimate teeter-totter team. Now sitting at 15-11 overall. When you remove its Q4 results, they are a 9-11 ballclub. That is a non-starter for being selected based on previous committee decisions as documented here several times before.
That Ohio State type of resume applies to SEC bubble hopefuls in Texas, Arkansas, and Georgia as well. This created a deeper level of searching for today’s final team. There are assurances and securities with the first 36 at-large teams, but finding that 37th team proved to be more challenging than I’ve seen all season, today.
The options were Indiana, San Francisco, Xavier, Santa Clara, North Carolina, or an SMU team that just tripped at home vs. Wake Forest. It was simple to dismiss the Ponies. IU and UNC have taken a high percentage of losses in many at-bats against high-level teams.
Santa Clara has such an intriguing set of road wins, headlined by Gonzaga and McNeese (the only team to win in either building). But the surplus of subpar losses for the Broncos is a killer and it’s difficult to see the committee getting aligned on them.
That left us with San Francisco or Xavier. The Musketeers have won at Marquette and own home wins over UConn and Wake Forest. A higher-end top of the resume than the Dons. The issue is they are still slightly below .500 with 10 combined losses in Quads 1 & 2A and only nine wins against teams in the top three.
San Francisco has the lone home win over Top 20 Saint Mary’s. An impressive and meaningful result to get into the discussion, but it was still at home, where the Dons are still undefeated. The issue is road wins are not quite there with the LMU and Pepperdine efforts being at the top. The win over Loyola-Chicago in Milwaukee has not carried the weight it once appeared to have.
After chewing on all of the above for likely way too long, Xavier enters the field as the final team in. They also have a manageable last five games left and should they handle business, I believe they will be in - making the forecast a little more realistic.
The Dons finish with two key games out of three, facing Oregon State on the road and Gonzaga in the NBA’s Chase Center. Certainly, a split is required, and perhaps a sweep can get the Dons over the hump for good.
BRACKET
Bracket projections are based on the 2024-25 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on which team has the inside track to the top seed within its conference tournament.
Forecasted At-Large Bids Stolen: 2 (A-10, Big West): The Annual Average = 2.4 Bids taken per year.
FIRST FOUR OUT: Ohio State, Arkansas, Texas, San Francisco
NEXT TEAMS OUT: Indiana, SMU, Georgia, Santa Clara
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