We’ve seen the selection committee consider injuries before. In one of the more recently memorable instances, the 2018 Notre Dame team for which Bonzie Colson missed 15 games was given the benefit of the doubt and slotted to be the last team in the field, at least until Davidson pulled off a bid thieving against Rhode Island.
In cases like Colson’s, and those of stars like him, it’s relatively easy for the committee to make adjustments. Most teams are relatively healthy. Those that aren’t often have the same health issues in March that they had in February, or January, or December. The remedy is simple: Move a team up if one of its best players was hurt and is now healthy.
This year won’t be so simple. How does the committee evaluate a team that was missing three starters one night, then three role players the next, then took two weeks off to quell an outbreak, then missed another week because of outbreaks at other programs, then…? And how does the committee do it when varying degrees of the same situation will have played out for possibly more than half the field?
We don’t know. Hopefully it’s consistently. But unfortunately for those affected, consistency in this case probably boils down to just taking the results as they are, rather than trying to parse context. Parsing context is a recipe for inconsistency for a committee that large working under a deadline.
Which is bad news for Saint Louis and Michigan State.
Michigan State wasn’t in our projected field to begin the week. But Saint Louis was. Saint Louis has been in our projected field all year, rather safely an at-large team even if they should lose in the A-10 tournament. They missed a month of play, but we’re still running our model as though all games will be made up (we’re getting ready to adjust that, but wanted to wait until February because of all the changing by conferences), and they had a solid résumé with solid expectations. Even without them making up currently unscheduled games, their median projection was something like a 7-3 or 8-2 finish in conference, with just three or four losses overall to go with something like 16 wins, many of which would’ve come against bubbly teams.
Then, they returned to the court on Tuesday.
And it did not go well.
A home loss to Dayton later, and the Billikens, though still the A-10’s projected automatic bid by our model, are on the wrong side of the cut line for the first time this year. Part of that’s the bad loss. Part of that’s the lowered expectations going forward, given how poorly they played. All of it’s a problem for Hasahn French & Friends.
Moving Up: Oklahoma, Clemson, San Diego State, Rutgers, Arkansas, LSU, Drake
No one climbed more than two seed lines this week, but seven teams did climb two seed lines. Oklahoma is the most noteworthy, getting close to top-four-seed territory with their win in Austin (Again, how will this be evaluated by the committee given Texas was missing three guys?), but other teams were notable in different ways. Clemson bounced back after a rough return from their own Covid break. The other five all put a bit more breathing room between themselves and the bubble. All good things for these guys heading into the weekend.
Moving Down: Saint Louis, BYU, Oregon, Loyola, Xavier
Saint Louis was the biggest dropper, falling three seed lines, but these others each fell two. Loyola is still projected above the cut line in their median finish, which is great news for the Ramblers, but it’s very close, which is not great news for the Ramblers. Xavier’s given up a lot of the progress they’d made. Ditto BYU. And Oregon, though not in bubble territory, is getting dangerously (and surprisingly) close.
Moving In: Colorado State
Only one new entrant this week. The Rams wrecked Boise State, and now join their conferencemates as a projected First Four team.
Moving Out: Maryland
Just Maryland. Didn’t do anything wrong. Got caught in the tide.
