Our NIT Bracketology and NIT probabilities are updated, and while our NCAA Tournament Bracketology update will be a little late today, our Seed List has our model’s latest outputs on that front.
Here’s what changed with yesterday’s games.
Moving In: Texas
Moving Out: San Diego State
San Diego State pounded Nevada, which doesn’t hurt the Aztecs. But the real mover here was Texas, whose home loss to Oklahoma should spell NIT. This gets the SEC back to its full allotment of three exempt bids, which knocks Colorado State out of a home game.
Moving In: Penn State
Moving Out: USC
Over in the Big Ten, questions appear to be answered regarding who’ll finish on top in the NET between Penn State, USC, and Iowa. Penn State closed its season in impressive fashion, beating Wisconsin at the Kohl Center. USC had a very different Saturday, rolling over in front of crosstown rival UCLA.
Why do the NET rankings particularly matter here? They’ll determine who the College Basketball Crown gets to hit with that contractual automatic bid. At the moment, that’s Northwestern and Penn State in the Big Ten, though Nebraska or Ohio State could still conceivably push Penn State down and make the NIT an option.
Nebraska or Xavier
Speaking of Nebraska:
We’ll dive into this more this week, but at the moment, the last spot in our model’s NCAA Tournament projection is coming down to Nebraska and Xavier. It might stay this way, too. The NCAA Tournament committee makes a lot of decisions before conference tournaments have played out.
Consensus can be wrong, but for whatever it’s worth, it seems consensus is coalescing around Oklahoma (in), Indiana (in), Arkansas (in), San Diego State (in), Ohio State (in), Texas (out), and North Carolina (out). Again, this can change, and bid thieves might push the cut line upwards. But I think the most serious disagreement right now exists between Xavier’s résumé and Nebraska’s. Xavier has fewer bad losses and better ratings across the board. Nebraska has more good wins. We should have a better feel for that situation tomorrow, and a really good feel for it come Tuesday, when we’ve seen reactions from better bracketologists than our model. I think the consensus is going to lean towards Xavier, while our model will presumably still favor the Cornhuskers. Look forward to some dives into that (and San Diego State, whose NCAA Tournament chances our model still doesn’t love).
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