Selection Sunday is here, and thank goodness the restless nights are over. It has been once again a great ride to the finish line. If you would have asked me last Sunday about my thoughts on the bubble picture, I would have said it’s pretty straightforward after the trio of Memphis, North Carolina, and Michigan secured key road wins. Fast forward one week and we have a whole new avalanche of chaos before us.
Virginia Tech enters the week with an unattractive resume, ends up winning the ACC Automatic bid and picks up potentially three tournament-level wins along the way (Notre Dame, UNC, Duke).
Texas A&M goes from pretty far out of the picture to beating Florida, Auburn, and blowing out Arkansas in a three-day span. Aggies have come too far and improved their position substantially. Regardless of the results in the SEC Tournament Title, the Aggies are sitting in great shape for a bid.
Notre Dame, VCU, and North Texas all fell early in their league tournament and are each on thin ice. Cannot see more than one of this group getting in.
SMU has been steady all bubble season long and remains here today amazingly. Mustangs hope to hear their name called after finishing 3-2 in their four games against the field (all against Memphis and Houston). The Mustangs have losses from the early season vs. LMU and Missouri that each aged horribly and creates enough reason to be confused.
Outlier teams like Rutgers, Oklahoma, and Wake Forest remain relevant but seemingly too risky for selection. Of this group, Rutgers has the best upside thanks to a superb 8-6 record against the field. Will not be surprised if Rutgers avoids Dayton with selection, because the wins are amazing. However, a group of five bad losses (Quad 2B or worse) combined with a 298th ranked out of conference schedule leaves RU hurting now. Oklahoma in our view is 12-15 in their only 27 meaningful games, that simply just isn’t a winning team. However, others think they have hope, so if they somehow get in - our process will shift! Again, the purpose of this website is to educate the College Hoops community and put our best foot forward to simulate what we believe is most important to the committee about each of their decisions. And with Wake Forest, you have a team who beat two tourney-caliber teams at home and did not get an away win against a team in the field. The kicker for the Deacons is the 343rd ranked OOC schedule. Which previous selection committee’s have taught us is way too far out of bounds when this close to the bubble.
BRACKET
Bracket projections are based on the 2021-22 NCAA Committee Principles and Selection Process. Projected Conference Champions are based on projected Auto-Bid winners.
At-Large Bids Stolen: 1 (Richmond, Atlantic-10)
FIRST FOUR OUT: Notre Dame, Xavier, Rutgers, VCU
NEXT TEAMS OUT: North Texas, BYU, Wake Forest, Oklahoma
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