Georgia Tech is not a lock to make the NCAA Tournament.
But they’re getting close.
After last night’s defeat of Duke, the Yellow Jackets check in as a 10-seed in our updated bracketology. And with a trip to Winston-Salem before next week’s ACC Tournament, Georgia Tech may just need one or two more wins to make the cut.
Today’s biggest movement:
Moving Up: Georgia Tech
Well done, Josh Pastner & Co. After opening the year with successive losses to Georgia State and Mercer at home, the team’s put together an impressive résumé, at least relatively to Georgia Tech’s the last few years. This is, by KenPom, Georgia Tech’s best team since 2007 in the context of the college basketball landscape.
Moving Down: Boise State
Boise State slides into the bid thieved seat, currently standing as the last team in the field. The Broncos were fine after being swept by San Diego State, but they probably couldn’t afford a home loss to meager Fresno State. A win in the MWC semifinals may now be necessary.
Moving In: Cleveland State
We’re starting to get automatic bid movement, which generally bumps up some conference favorites. Former projected 15-seed Georgia State, for example, will be happy to see Cleveland State as the Horizon League’s new favorite follow last night’s chaos. Cleveland State comes in on the 15-line. Georgia State slides up to a 14.
Moving Out: Wright State
And waving goodbye is Wright State, who allowed one of the most improbable comebacks in the last two decades to Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Stunning stuff.
***
We got the Big 12 and the Big West to “almost-finalized” last night, and the OVC, Patriot League, and A-10 all finalized. We’re down to twelve leagues we still need to almost-finalize (the process where we remove unrescheduled postponed games and lock in the tournament format, but don’t scrub it for tiebreakers and/or home court advantages and/or reseedings). These updates generally don’t make a big impact, but we want to be transparent about where we’re at in this particularly odd year. The twelve remaining conferences to be almost-finalized are as follows: MWC, SWAC, Big East, Big Sky, CUSA, Southland, Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten, MAC, WAC, AAC.
Conference Tournament probabilities, for leagues with games last night or today (apologies to the A-10, who finished both today’s games already—we’ll still publish this morning’s probabilities, but they’re mildly out of date):
Atlantic 10 Conference
VCU: 26.6%
St. Bonaventure: 23.8%
Saint Louis: 22.7%
Davidson: 11.9%
Richmond: 7.0%
Dayton: 3.3%
Rhode Island: 1.7%
George Mason: 1.1%
UMass: 1.1%
Duquesne: 0.6%
Saint Joseph’s: 0.1%
La Salle: 0.02%
George Washington: 0.02%
Fordham: 0.00%
As you might guess, there won’t be much of a shift for St. Joe’s and GW tonight, even following their wins. And no shift for Fordham, who didn’t win in any of the 10,000 simulations anyway.
Horizon League
Cleveland State: 37.4%
Northern Kentucky: 26.5%
Oakland: 18.4%
Milwaukee: 17.7%
Picking up the pieces after Milwaukee stunned Wright State (amid some other wild action).
Ohio Valley Conference
Belmont: 48.5%
Morehead State: 20.9%
Eastern Kentucky: 10.3%
Jacksonville State: 8.0%
Murray State: 7.7%
Austin Peay: 3.3%
Southeast Missouri State: 1.0%
SIU-Edwardsville: 0.2%
A clear favorite, but Belmont isn’t yet favored over the field.
Patriot League
Colgate: 58.4%
Navy: 29.8%
Army: 5.0%
Lafayette: 2.8%
Loyola (Maryland): 1.4%
Lafayette: 2.8%
American: 1.3%
Bucknell: 0.9%
Boston University: 0.4%
Lehigh: 0.03%
How about the service academies?
