NCAA tourney and Bubble Watch(Long)

[WildCatzPhreak]

Something I put together out of boredom while I was at work with nothing to do.  There's probably mistakes in it, so feel free to correct them /make adjustments if you see any. (Sidenote: The numbers next to the conferences/teams only represent that a slot is being taken by them, not which seed that conference/team may get.)

I wanted to figure out what our chances of making the tournament are, and who we should be rooting for or against.  First I figured out how many spots in the tourney would be taken up by the winners of some lowly conference that will only be getting an automatic bid.

AUTOMATIC BID ONLY
65. America East
64. Atlantic Sun
63. Atlantic 10
62. Big Sky
61. Big South
60. Big West
59. Colonial
58. Conference USA
57. Horizon
56. Ivy
55. Metro Atlantic
54. MAC
53. MCC
52. MEAC
51. Northeast
50. Ohio Valley
49. Patriot
48. Southern
47. Southland
46. SWAC
45. Sun Belt
44. WCC





Then I figured that 9 more spots are guarunteed to be taken by using autobids from conferences who may also get at large bids.

POWER CONFERENCE AUTOBID
43. ACC(North Carolina)
42. Big East(Pitt)
41. Big XII(Kansas)
40. Big 10(Wiscy)
39. MVC(Southern Illinois)
38. MWC(Air Force)
37. Pac 10(UCLA)
36. SEC(Florida)
35. WAC(Nevada)



Then I went ahead and picked out the teams that are damn near guarunteed to make the tournament by receiving at large bids.



LIKELY AT LARGE BIDS
34. Ohio State(swappable with Wiscy, one will be auto the other at large)
33. Kentucky(19-8, but top 10 in RPI and playing in powerful SEC conference.)
32. Duke (Damn near a lock with bloated RPI, tough SOS, and playing in ACC)
31. UNLV (Kruger takes yet another team dancing.  22-6 with wins over Air Force and BYU)
30. Arizona (17-9, bloated RPI of 12, wins over UNLV, Oregon)
29. Tennessee (High RPI, wins over OkieState, Kentucky, plays in tough SEC)
28. Texas A&M (Lost four games all year)
27. Georgetown (20-5, 10-2 in the Big East, high RPI)
26. Vandy(17-8, 8-4 in the tough SEC.  Good RPI)
25. Indiana(Big win over Wisconsin @ Indiana. Can't win on the road, but I've never seen a top 20 RPI team miss the tourney.)
24. Washington State(22-4, 11-3 in a pretty good Pac 10.)
23. Virginia tech(See above)
22. Boston College(See above)
21. Virginia(See above)
20. BYU(Three bids for the MWC?  Unfortunately looks like it...I don't see how they're left out unfortunately)
19. Michigan State(Top 4 in the Big 10.)
18. Georgetown(top 3 in bige)
17. Louisville(see above)
16. Marquette(22-7, 9-5 in big east)




So I figure that leaves FIFTEEN spots for bubble teams.
Bubble teams(ROOT AGAINST THESE GUYS!):
Alabama
Maryland
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Villanova
Southern Cal
Texas
Creighton
Georgia
Missouri State
Oklahoma State
West Virginia
Illinois
Purdue
Bradley
Clemson
Florida State
Providence
Texas Tech
Arkansas
Georgia Tech
Gonzaga
Hofstra
UMass
Michigan
Miss State
Ole Miss
Syracuse


That's about 30 teams competing for 15 spots.  Those on the good side of the bubble are listed at the top.  Those on the bad side of the bubble are listed at the bottom.  (Sidenote: K-state is a bubble team but not listed as this is meant to be a list of teams we're competing with.)

Just something to play around with.

[atybimf]

soooo muchh speculllllation!

I'm just gonna cheer on the cats these next three games and hope for the best.

[WildCatzPhreak]

Yeah.  We really do have to win at least three more games to get in, whether that be 3-0 in the conference or 2-1 and a tourney win.

Beating OSU would SERIOUSLY help our cause.  But don't fall for the "Well we're gonna be 4th in the Big XII and have 20+ wins!" bit because it doesn't guaruntee us anything.  Conference standing and win total unfortunately means squat right now.  With UT, TTU, and OSU ahead of us in the RPI and having better "big wins" than us, K-state would be the sixth team taken from the Big XII despite us being 4th in the standings.

Luckily, there's two things about that: We're not competing with just those three teams, we're competing with all thirty or so bubble teams.

In reality, Colorado is only relevantit would be considered a "bad" loss, and Oklahoma State is huge because it would give us a huge boost to RPI and hurt another "bubble team."  Oklahoma really doesn't affect us too much win or lose with the exception of us needing to play our best at the end of the year and maybe take a chunk out of our RPI.

[ksuno1stunner]

OSU is so overrated.  We've had some bad losses, but...

at Kansas   L   87-57
at Texas A&M   L   67-49
at Colorado   L   89-77
at Texas   L   83-54
Missouri   L   75-64

[cireksu]

I don't understand how OSU can be considered over us right now.  Do they not take into account how a team has been playing over the last 10 games or so???

[WildCatzPhreak]

I don't understand how OSU can be considered over us right now.  Do they not take into account how a team has been playing over the last 10 games or so???

They do.  They also take into account wins over "Good teams."  We're like 1/5 against top 50 RPI teams, while OSU has 3 wins being TTU, Pitt, and UT.  TTU has A&M, A&M, and ku.

I'm not sure how they weigh each in comparison.  I'm hoping TTU and OSU fall on their faces in their last few games.  We need to help that cause by beating OSU.

[mcmwcat]

I think there are a few teams you would want to root for that are on your list.  The first would be Texas so they would remain in the top 50 and the other is USC so they could get back to the top 50.  Like you said, top 50 wins are one of the criteria the selection committee consider.

[jarrr]

Im pretty sure UT is a pretty solid bubble. Also, dont count out one of those mid major f#cks like Butler or Winthrop from slipping in their conference tourney. Conference tourneys should be banned.

[ChicagoCat]

i'm just pissed off that apparently georgetown gets two bids.  Selfish bastards