Bubble Teams Breathe a Sigh of Relief

The madness has already begun! With a 71-67 victory over the Morehead State Eagles in the OVC championship, the Murray State Racers are the first team to officially punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. It will be interesting to see where the committee seeds them, but I'm guessing that they end up as either a 6 or 7-seed. I would not want to be a 2 or 3-seed having to play this resilient squad led by KJ Williams that really has a knack for closing out games. They would've made the big dance regardless of the outcome against the Eagles, so bubble teams all across America can be thankful that Murray St. wasn't taking one of their sought-out at-large bids. Speaking of the bubble, two teams right at the cut-line have offered a more clear picture of where they stand based on their performance in the conference tournament.

BYE BYE BYU

There's no denying that head coach Mark Pope felt that his Cougars desperately needed another Quad 1 victory to make a case to the committee that they are worthy of a tournament bid. BYU got that chance last night against San Francisco and lost by 12. They'll remain in consideration for an at-large berth, but it seems that they just barely didn't do enough to warrant selection. None of the metrics, results-based or predictive, view them particularly favorably, though a 4-6 Quad 1 record is respectable and wins over San Diego State, Saint Mary's, and at San Francisco look good. It remains such a close call for the Cougars, but I anticipate them being a top seed in the NIT. Maybe coming away with a win at Santa Clara or avoiding the bad loss at Pacific would've been enough to keep them in the field, or there's a chance that I'm entirely wrong and the WCC puts 4 teams in the tournament for the first time ever.

Mean Jean Machine

Despite slumping their way to a 4-seed in Arch Madness, the Loyola Chicago Ramblers have looked every bit the best team in the Missouri Valley so far in St. Louis. They've blown out Bradley and top-seeded Northern Iowa, both of which took a game off Loyola on their respective home courts. The Ramblers now face Drake in the MVC championship, and the Bulldogs are the only team to have beaten Loyola twice. It looks like Loyola will claim the auto-bid based on how they're playing right now, but should Drake come away with another victory, the Ramblers will certainly be sweating it out on Selection Sunday. Unlike BYU, however, I believe that Loyola will squeeze into the tournament in the event of a defeat today, provided that they play the Bulldogs close. Despite mediocre results-based metrics (still better than BYU), Loyola performs extremely well in the predictives, and I have a hard time believing that the committee will deny a team with (presumably) a top 30 NET and KenPom ranking. Their neutral court victory over San Francisco also looks a bit better now, and it may play to the Ramblers' advantage that three losses to Drake appears as a matchup-based fluke. Perhaps a trip to Dayton is in the cards for Sister Jean's squad, though they would be much better off securing the automatic bid and not even making it a question.