NIT Bracketology: San Francisco and the ‘Good vs. Deserving’ Question

Our NIT Bracketology is updated through yesterday’s games, and San Francisco is on the NIT bubble.

The Dons are an interesting case for our model, because they’re an interesting case for the committee. In our core NIT selection formula—the one we use for 80% of our daily simulations, and the one that tracks well with last year’s selections and those of 2022—San Francisco performs well enough to be right on the bubble. They have a strong NET ranking. They’re strong in kenpom as well. In the other two formulas—one that mostly mirrors the NCAA Tournament’s selection process, one that flips the emphasis from “how good is this team” to “how accomplished is this team”—San Francisco falls off the cliff. Our probabilities rely on this 80/10/10 mix. Our bracketology looks at the median of it all, something that with most teams, and especially unusual teams, falls within the core formula—the one we use for those 80% of the sim’s.

What this is all telling us is that San Francisco doesn’t really “deserve” an NIT bid over a fellow bubble team like Florida State (to pick an example—it isn’t FSU vs. USF for the final spot). They haven’t accomplished as much, even if you account for differences in scheduling. San Francisco is, though, a better team than Florida State, based on what we know right now. The NIT would produce better basketball, by our best guess, if San Francisco got that nod.

There are a lot of games left to be played. Our model still hasn’t seen NET, KPI, or SOR react to last night’s result. But San Francisco is on the NIT bubble, and perhaps more than any other team in that situation, they’re going to be a litmus test of what this year’s NIT committee values.

No graphic today. Games have begun!

Last Four In, First Four Out, Etc.

On the low side:

• Last Four In (from the cut line going upwards): Florida State, San Francisco, Duquesne, VCU
• First Four Out (from the cut line going downwards): Minnesota, UMass, Cornell, Yale
• Others in the mix (>10% NIT chance, below NIT field, not in our field or in the First Four Out): Xavier, Maryland, Georgia, Penn State, George Mason

On the high side:

• Last Four In (from the cut line going downwards): Villanova, St. John’s, Wake Forest, Providence
• First Four Out (from the cut line going upwards): New Mexico, Mississippi State, TCU, Indiana State
• Others in the mix (>10% NIT chance, above NIT field, not in our field or in the First Four Out): Seton Hall, Virginia, Colorado State, Oklahoma
• Two more (our model loves these teams’ NCAAT chances, but it’s an outlier compared to the consensus): Colorado, Texas A&M

As always, we account for bid thieves by looking at the median cut lines in our model’s simulations. Today, those remain 46^th and 83^rd, meaning if there was a master seed list covering both tournaments, the 46^th overall seed would be the last NCAAT at-large and the 83^rd seed would be the last NIT at-large. More on this below.

Conference Tournament Favorites (Reverse Bid Thieves)

Given where those cut lines stand and how many teams sit between them, we don’t have any reverse bid thieves today. All conference tournament favorites who sit in NIT at-large territory are, in today’s bracketology, not in the NIT. More likely than not, this isn’t what happens, but our cut line is 83 and Florida State is the 83^rd team on our seed list, so there’s a good chance that whatever reverse bid thieves do happen are canceled out by current projected NIT at-larges playing their way into the NCAAT as automatic bids. For example: Princeton could lose in the Ivy League Tournament, but Richmond could win the A-10 Tournament.

The three conference tournament favorites in NIT at-large bid territory if they lose:

• Princeton
• Grand Canyon
• McNeese

Model Talk: Bid Thieves

Our model shifted its median NCAAT/NIT cut line today from 45^th to 46^th. The tipping point was the elimination of San Francisco and Santa Clara from the WCC Tournament. We’re most likely only getting one more bid thief (whether we’ve gotten one already is up for debate, hinging on Drake’s hypothetical at-large status and Indiana State’s real at-large status). Possibilities for two, three, or even more still very much exist, but in 50% of scenarios, we get one or we get zero. This is surprising, given Dayton and FAU are both rather small conference tournament favorites, but it’s how the math shakes out today.

This is great news for bubble teams on both bubbles. It shifts the whole picture down a little bit. That said, it’s only a minor shift, so it’s mostly already accounted for in our probabilities. It’s bigger in the bracketology.

The Graveyard

Before we get to today’s archive, we wanted to talk about who’s losing what because of the change in the automatic bid rules. We think it’s important to track the real impact of the changes, or at least our closest estimate of that impact. So:

• Losing an automatic bid (teams who would have made it in last year’s format): High Point, Eastern Washington, Little Rock, Eastern Kentucky, Central Connecticut State
• Gaining a bid (teams we think are receiving those bids instead): Florida State, San Francisco, Duquesne, VCU, NC State
• Losing a home game (teams who would have been seeded and had the option to host last year): Butler, Kansas State, Richmond
• Gaining a home game (the teams picking up home games as replacements): Washington, Mississippi, LSU

Not all non-power conference teams are created equal. We believe strongly in the high-major/mid-major/low-major dichotomy (as opposed to calling teams only power conference schools and mid-majors). In total, then, what we have is this:

• Five NIT spots shifting away from low-majors. Three of those go to mid-majors. Two go to high-majors.
• One NIT home game shifting away from a mid-major. It goes to a high-major.

For the Archives