It’s Friday, our NIT Bracketology is updated, and it’s a little dreary here so I’m a sleepy boy so please forgive me for any typos herein. Especially the important ones.
There.
Now I don’t have to proofread.
A few orders of business, before we give the scene around the bracket:
- We’re going to be posting the schedule of NIT-impacting games daily from now through Selection Sunday. Those will be separate posts than Joe’s and my daily notes, but there will still be plenty of college basketball talk in the notes. We just want the schedule section that’s been eating the bottom of my notes alive to be its own post. So, look for today’s NIT schedule shortly after this rundown gets posted.
- We’re aiming to have NIT Bubble Watch live on Monday. This will add even more depth and context around the bracket situation, especially since we still plan to post NIT Bracketology Rundowns like these every time we update the projected bracket.
- Croissants are overrated. Good ones are good, but the floor on those guys is terribly low. People just like the idea of liking things that are French.
Now that that’s over, let’s go around the horn:
Moving In: Clemson, Santa Clara, Marshall*, Toledo*
No movement on the upper bubble, where Wisconsin and USC made grave mistakes this week and Mississippi State did exactly what we expected them to do. The Bulldogs are still in the bid thief seat, so they’re on a knife’s edge, but they’re leaning more towards us than towards our mortal enemy, the NCA* *********t.
On the bottom bubble, Clemson and Santa Clara each moved back in, liberated from their CBI confinement by good enough wins. They got help, but we’ll get to that.
Marshall took over the Sun Belt lead, so they now project as an automatic bid. They’re in range where they’d be projected as an at-large bid were they not an automatic bid, but they don’t have to worry about that if they successfully close out the league title. Similarly, with Ball State upsetting Kent State we now have Toledo as the likeliest MAC Champion, and therefore a likely auto-bid. Because they still aren’t better than Kent State.
Moving Out: UCF, Drake**, Southern Miss*, Norfolk State*
UCF lost at home to South Florida, and that’s not what a team in UCF’s prior position wants to do. Drake didn’t do anything wrong, but they flipped back to being the Arch Madness favorite, so they vanished (this is how we got Santa Clara back).
Southern Miss is no longer the Sun Belt favorite, Norfolk State is likelier than Toledo to win its conference tournament, so it doesn’t get one of our auto-bid spots.
Conference Complications: Oral Roberts*, Liberty, College of Charleston, Drake, Sam Houston State, Dayton, Kent State
With the exception of Oral Roberts, none of these schools are currently favored to win their conference’s regular season title. Each is the conference tournament favorite, though, and each is in position to get an at-large bid if they lose in their conference tournament and it isn’t horrific. No guarantees, but each is probably making the NIT if they don’t win their respective conference tournament.
The simple version of this: All these teams are in the NIT mix if they don’t win their conference tournament.
The nerdy, detailed version:
For all of these besides Oral Roberts, there’s another team in the conference in our bracket holding a projected automatic bid, and that team is the likeliest to knock them off in the conference tournament. For example: If Sam Houston State loses in the WAC Championship, the most likely team to beat them is Utah Valley, which would just flip SHSU and UVU in our world. The same is true with Drake and Bradley, and with Liberty and Kennesaw State, and with Kent State and Toledo, and so on. We say this to say: The cut line is still projected to sit between Santa Clara and UCF. Leagues are distinct from one another—the probability of a non-Charleston/Hofstra tournament champion in the CAA is way lower than the probability of a non-Dayton/VCU champion in the A-10—but for anyone wondering if these schools could get NIT bids, they could, and for anyone wondering if that changes our cut line, it doesn’t.
Also, our method of projecting the median number of automatic bids takes care of this.
Conference Complications Lite: Yale*
Yale’s kind of a weird one because they’d be in the at-large mix if they weren’t the Ivy League regular season favorite, but they’d be somewhere between UCF and Louisiana, and the combination where they both lose the Ivy League regular season title and lose the Ivy League tournament would probably leave them short of our cut line. So, an at-large path probably doesn’t exist for Yale, but it’s possible enough for us to mention it.
First Four Out: UCF, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Southern Miss
Will the South rise again? In the context of the NIT, we’ll have to wait and see. All four of these are within enough striking distance that even if they were in this same spot on Selection Sunday, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were let in.
Next Four Out: UNLV, St. John’s, Saint Louis, Louisiana
These four have more work to do. And yes, Syracuse is behind them on our list. Syracuse really has nothing going for it other than the fervent wishes of thousands of Syracuse fans to be at least good enough to make the NIT. Maybe those wishes will do something, but they aren’t a variable in our model.
Losers (in the field): Oklahoma, Washington State
The NIT committee pulls surprises often, and if this year’s surprise is to get rid of the unspoken sub-.500 rule, Oklahoma and Washington State would be in our projected bracket today.
Losers (in the mix): Nebraska, Villanova, Ohio State
The NIT committee pulls surprises often, and if this year’s surprise is to get rid of the unspoken sub-.500 rule, these three would be grappling with the likes of UCF and Louisiana for bubble position.
**
New bracket on Monday, or so we plan. No bracket if there’s a meteor.
