It is remarkably close. Our model has four teams with a median overall seeding of 67th, which is Duke’s. Duke has the best mean overall seeding of those four, but again—remarkably close.
There’s some good news for the Blue Devils, though.
First of all, they’re still in the projected field. Last team in, but in. That’s better than 341 teams in Division-I men’s basketball can say. (Not to mention all the other teams in existence. Sorry, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you aren’t making the NIT.)
Second of all, in their median simulation, they beat Boston College and lose a close one to Louisville (they’d be favored against the Louisvilles, but the chances of them winning both those games are below fifty percent).
Third of all, UC-Santa Barbara and Louisiana Tech both have some potential terrible losses remaining on the schedule, and Penn State’s far enough below .500 that we’re feeling uneasy, to put it mildly, about our model’s confidence in them.
In other words…Duke might still have this.
The rest of the NITuation:
Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song): Syracuse, Drake, Minnesota, Toledo
Drake (beat Missouri State) won one too many. Minnesota (lost to Rutgers in overtime) lost one too many. Syracuse and Toledo were victims of circumstance. And their own not being the exact right amount of mediocre (in Syracuse’s case) and good (in Toledo’s case). (Isn’t it funny how different our expectations are based on the conference to which teams belong?)
Moving In: Xavier, Western Kentucky, St. John’s, Stanford
So part of what happened with Syracuse is that the model no longer expects any bid thieves to happen, which doesn’t really mean the model doesn’t expect any bid thieves to happen so much as it means the model expects the last team out of the NIT (on the high side) to be the 49th overall seed, when up to now it’s been the 48th overall seed for a while. That means only one team drops in today, and it’s Xavier. Xavier!
Now, this is a little uncomfortable because Nate Johnson’s injury is part of what’s gotten Xavier into the NIT, and we don’t want to be like, “Hey, that injury was great for your team!” Don’t want to encourage that kind of thing. That said, impressive Johnson would take the bullet like that. Or the injury to the lower leg, as it were. (KIDDING this really does stink for Nate Johnson, and for Xavier, and we wish both the best but we maintain that for Xavier that means winning the NIT.)
Western Kentucky’s back after winning the Old Dominion rematch and getting Conference USA seedings finalized, and having Big Red in the house again is like finding your cat who was out of your sight for only a few minutes but does have a history of escaping and wasn’t in the usual spots. Which is to say it’s an enormous relief, but a little invalidating on the anxiety front if we’re being honest.
Oh, just remembered: Xavier lost to Marquette. That’s why they’re here.
St. John’s beat Seton Hall, with the Pirates proving to the world that the Big East is a team sport. They put on their own oxygen mask. Now they’re helping others.
Stanford didn’t play. Not sure what happened there. Maybe some Pac-12 seeding realignment? It’s close, guys.
Teams Too Likely to Win Their Conference Tournament
Winthrop, who’s probably out either way because losing to Campbell would be too bad a loss. Let the record show that they were in NIT range this morning and would have made it were poaching illegal in college basketball postseason tournament selection.
Next in Line:
Below the field, from closest to close:
Toledo
Providence
Minnesota
Kentucky
Richmond
North Carolina State
Marshall
Dayton
Marquette
Belmont
Georgia
Davidson
Funny thing about this NIT: We’re headed for a lot of would-have-been-auto-bids. Which could ultimately mean that the field could be the exact same, minus the auto-bids.
Next out of Line:
Above the field, from closest to close:
Syracuse
Colorado State
SMU
Boise State
Drake
Wichita State
Virginia Tech
UCLA
Louisville
Maryland
Rutgers
Oklahoma
Is Drake done? Even if they lose badly to Loyola?
***
And that’s the NITuation.
Today’s other notes:
- It’s a shame Penn State’s the face of the sub-.500 situation and not Kentucky. Would be way easier to get people to pay attention to the Wildcats. Easy to ignore Penn State if you’re a fan or a committee. And we need answers eventually. Anyway, Kentucky whomped South Carolina yesterday and Penn State visits Maryland tonight in a game our model expects them to lose which kind of makes it an Aaron Rodgers-esque free play, except if they play too well they might leapfrog our NIT Bracketology and embarrass our model even more.
- UCLA’s hanging around, losing the battle for Los Angeles yesterday, which is to say they won it. Unless we’re going with the opposite framing in your head, in which case they lost the battle, which is to say they won it. Lost the game. Closer to the NIT than USC.
- Saint Louis took care of business, losing handily to St. Bonaventure. Would imagine the Billikens are in, and possibly a favorite.
- Providence took down a shorthanded Villanova, but that’s the only Villanova we have now. Only 104 points scored in total. Should they let Villanova into the NIT?
- Indiana lost to Purdue. Still in the thick of things.
- Davidson’s run likely ended, barring a lot of opt-outs. (If there are enough opt-outs and they’re the right ones [and to be clear, we don’t know if there’ll be any opt-outs so maybe we should point THAT out on twitter dot com] we might get a C-USA/A-10 showdown in place of the NIT this year, which would be really funny but maybe bad for this blog?)
- Saint Mary’s held Loyola Marymount to 47 points, only scored 52 themselves, and surged into a concerning position. They need to lose sizably to BYU tomorrow to feel safe (by the way, love how the WCC takes Sunday off for BYU—I know they have to, but I still like that for some reason). (EDIT: Whoops they play Gonzaga they should be fine.)
- The history books won’t tell you how close Drake’s miss against Missouri State was.
- Mississippi held Vanderbilt to 46, but that might’ve been a Vanderbilt thing, not a Mississippi thing.
- Humongo (humoungo?) game between Memphis and Houston going on right now. Memphis can’t win that one.
- Michigan State hosts Michigan, and honestly, Sparty might be able to get away with a win. I wouldn’t try it if I were them, but I’m not them. They might try it. And it might be ok.
Now go out there and support the NIT!
