NIT Bracketology: Xavier’s on .500 Watch

Our NIT Bracketology is updated, and in our model’s eyes, Seton Hall has finally played their way out.

The move brings Virginia down our way, though as we’ll write below, we’re a little wary of this move by our model given where the consensus currently has the Hoos. Meanwhile, the bottom end is roiling, with Indiana, Duquesne, and San Francisco all moving in this morning as St. Bonaventure and Minnesota move out. (JMU also moves out, because of something Xavier did. We’ll explain below.)

Here’s the bracket:

Last Four In, First Four Out, Etc.

On the low side:

• Last Four In (from the cut line going upwards): San Francisco, Indiana, Duquesne, Washington
• First Four Out (from the cut line going downwards): NC State, VCU, St. Bonaventure, Minnesota
• Others in the mix (>10% NIT chance, below NIT field, not in our field or in the First Four Out): Samford, Rutgers, Georgia, Florida State, UMass, Boston College

On the high side:

• Last Four In (from the cut line going downwards): Texas A&M, Virginia, Utah, Drake
• First Four Out (from the cut line going upwards): Indiana State*, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Colorado
• Others in the mix (>10% NIT chance, above NIT field, not in our field or in the First Four Out): Villanova, New Mexico, TCU, Boise State, Saint Mary’s, Florida Atlantic, Mississippi State, Colorado State, Oklahoma

As always, we account for bid thieves by looking at the median cut lines in our model’s simulations. Today, those remain 45^th and 82^nd, meaning if there was a master seed list covering both tournaments, the 45^th overall seed would be the last NCAAT at-large and the 82^nd seed would be the last NIT at-large.

*We haven’t been including Indiana State in this space, and we realized today we don’t have a good reason not to, given they aren’t favored to win the MVC Tournament. We have them right alongside Texas A&M.

Conference Tournament Favorites (Reverse Bid Thieves); Xavier and the Automatic Bid

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 82 and Duquesne is the 82^nd team on our seed list, so there’s a good chance that whichever reverse bid thieves do materialize are canceled out by current projected NIT at-larges playing their way into the NCAAT as automatic bids. For example: If we get JMU, we’ll probably lose App State. If we get Princeton, we’ll probably lose Yale. If we get McNeese, maybe we lose Richmond in a different conference tournament.

Why this changed today is that after last night’s loss at Butler, Xavier is no longer expected to finish the season at or above .500. They’re 15–15 right now, with only a home game against Marquette remaining on their regular season schedule. They have a path to finishing at or above .500, but it requires either beating Marquette or winning two Big East Tournament games, two which would have to come over Butler and UConn in the relevant scenario.

Can Xavier make the NIT as a sub-.500 team? Yes. They’re in our bracket today. They’re ranked 62^nd by NET right now, right in the middle of Providence (61^st), Seton Hall (63^rd), and Butler (65^th). That’s close enough to be almost meaningless, but if Xavier hangs with Marquette and maybe beats Butler before losing to UConn, there’s a very good chance they’ll be the second-best Big East team in the NET rankings without an NCAA Tournament bid.

The question, then, is whether Xavier can make it as a sub-.500 team without that automatic bid. The answer is a mystery. In announcing the new automatic bid rules this fall, the NCAA made a big deal out of the fact that sub-.500 teams can get them. Can sub-.500 teams get at-large bids, though? The NCAA didn’t say. Whether they can or can’t, according to the rules, has been unclear for years. During those years, no sub-.500 team has made it, giving us an implicit answer.

Our model gives sub-.500 teams only a 10% chance of being considered for NIT at-large bids. Xavier’s chance of finishing below .500 is high enough that this leaves their median NIT selection score as “not considered.” So, they’re out of the top 82, they’re still in our bracket as an automatic bid, Duquesne slides up across the cut line, and James Madison is bumped out to make room. Is this a perfect way to approach NIT Bracketology? I don’t think so, but I don’t think a perfect approach exists.

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

• Princeton
• Grand Canyon
• James Madison
• McNeese

Model Talk: Virginia

As we said above, we’re wary of our model regarding UVA. As of yesterday morning, 100 of the 113 reputable bracketologists on Bracket Matrix had Virginia still in the field, in terms of where things currently stand. Many had Virginia as a 10-seed.

There are, as always, two possibilities as to why our model disagrees with the consensus. The first is that the future results our model accounts for are unkind to Virginia’s chances, and that the consensus will come back to the model once the games are played. The second is that our model disagrees with the consensus about how the committee will view the Hoos.

Virginia hosts Georgia Tech on Saturday. Virginia should win that game. If they do, they’ll be the 3-seed in the ACC Tournament, leaving them playing any one of Clemson, Pitt, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, and Miami in their first ACC Tournament game. That’s a wide range of possibilities. Notably, though, Virginia would be an underdog against any of Clemson, Pitt, and Wake Forest, based on what we know now. They wouldn’t be a very large favorite against Syracuse, Boston College, or Miami. Given they’re only 76% likely to beat Georgia Tech on Saturday, per kenpom, and that game is in Charlottesville, we can assume they aren’t 74% likely to beat Georgia Tech or Notre Dame on a neutral floor, meaning no matter who the ACC Tournament opponent is, Virginia is likelier to go 1–1 from here than 2–1. That’s what our model’s seeing. It’s seeing another loss.

Some of the potential Virginia losses are better than others. Losing to Clemson would be an especially good outcome. But the probability Virginia loses once more, combined with the probability that at least some teams pass them (including Seton Hall, whom Bracket Matrix had behind Virginia before the Pirates’ win over Villanova last night), makes us feel pretty good about where our model has Tony Bennett’s team. Also, our probabilities are kinder to UVA than Bart Torvik’s. Bart’s been doing this longer than we have, and we would confidently bet on him being smarter than us with this stuff.

In short, we don’t think our model is wrong about Virginia. We think the relevant results just haven’t happened yet.

**

One Texas A&M note! Since our model has the Aggies in a Bid Thief Seat.

A&M is still a slight underdog at Mississippi on Saturday in our model’s eyes (because of kenpom). As we wrote yesterday, our model is overrating the possibility A&M gets to play LSU in its SEC Tournament opener, because our model doesn’t consider conference tiebreakers unless we explicitly tell it to do so. We don’t really think this is the difference maker right now—whether A&M plays LSU or Mississippi State in the SEC Tourney’s second round, they’re likeliest to go 1–1 over their next two games—but it’s worth mentioning. Really? I think our model’s probably overrating A&M’s chances, but I also think the industry wrote the Aggies off prematurely. Getting to next Friday at 6–6 in Q1 and 5–4 in Q2 (A&M’s median scenario) might be enough to earn them a look. The wins over Tennessee, Iowa State, and Kentucky should play. I don’t know what to think about this team, and I believe our model’s wrong when it says they’re likelier than not to make the NCAAT, but I think our model’s right to point out that they still have a very realistic chance.

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