NIT Bubble Watch, Entering Friday Night

Well, well, well. If it isn’t you, reading about the NIT.

We’re doing the Bubble Watch thing, and in honor of all the great NCAA propagandists who filled our heads with this about their favorite tournament when we were young, we’re going to do it exactly the way they do.

Almost.

Changing the terms a little.

Screwed is the term for those who will not make the NIT because they have played too well. They will be playing exhibition games the rest of the year. Big TV audiences, though. Congratulations, you soulless bodies.

Holding the Balloon is the term for those who could still drop into the NIT from above (or are currently in its upper reaches), but are floating away. Straight upwards. Into a ceiling fan of terror and despair.

Cruising for a Stuising is the term for those who look like they’re coming to the NIT. There are few sure things in this world, and especially so when the NIT’s involved (because it’s such a narrow field)

Ooh That’s a Good Question is the term for those who are really right darn square on the NIT’s bottom bubble, or close enough that they deserve mention. They’re done playing, they might make it, it could go either way.

Mufasa-Style is the term for those who could survive and get back in this, but really need to scramble back up fast. Not to compare the CBI to a deadly herd of…antelope? Were those antelope? Antelopes? Moving on.

We’ll deal with automatic bids at the end.

To timestamp this, we’re publishing it at about 6:00 PM EST on Friday, March 11^th. North Texas has lost to Louisiana Tech. Texas A&M has beaten Auburn. Indiana has beaten Illinois. Saint Louis has beaten St. Bonaventure. Iowa has beaten Rutgers. UAB just finally finished off Middle Tennessee State. Toledo and Akron are into the second half. Other games are tipping off.

Atlantic 10

Screwed:
Holding the Balloon: Davidson, VCU, Dayton
Cruising for a Stuising: Saint Louis, St. Bonaventure
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style: Richmond

If the A-10 wants to be a five-bid league, it needs Richmond to beat VCU this evening. Otherwise, it could be as low as…a two-bid league? Hard to see it dropping below that. Chance Dayton and VCU get stuck in the elevator together, but SLU and St. Bonaventure look really, really good right now (don’t do anything silly, Billikens, but you look good), and I wouldn’t count Davidson entirely out yet. Are the odds low? Very. But they’re not zero yet. Don’t give up yet, you uninspiring creatures. Put Saint Louis in a hard place. Make them earn this.

ACC

Screwed: Duke, UNC
Holding the Balloon: Miami, Notre Dame
Cruising for a Stuising: Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Virginia
Ooh That’s a Good Question: Florida State
Mufasa-Style:

Miami’s a tough one, because losing to Duke wouldn’t do much for them, but the bubble is frothing enough that we won’t rule it out. Similar vibe to Davidson. Behind them…nice work, ACC.

Notre Dame’s questionable still, but the thing about the Irish is that they managed to play in the Maui Invitational, host Kentucky when Kentucky was figuring things out, play Indiana in Indianapolis, and play a full ACC schedule and walk away with only one impressive victory. Also, a bunch of teams have already won today who weren’t expected to, and it’s relatively early in the day. I just took my first sip of coffee! (I’m a tea in the morning guy.) So that helps.

Virginia Tech might be able to get away with a win over UNC. I wouldn’t try it, but they could potentially get away with one. Meanwhile, Wake Forest and Virginia made inspiring closing cases, losing to Boston College and accidentally putting an invisibility cloak over the hoop, respectively.

Florida State’s hoping on either a favorable glance from the committee or a very low number of automatic bids. They did just enough over the regular season’s final eight days to make us remember they exist. They then lost by 39 points to Syracuse.

The American

Screwed: Houston
Holding the Balloon: Memphis, SMU
Cruising for a Stuising:
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style: UCF

Memphis and SMU need to lose, almost assuredly today. A bad loss tomorrow, with help elsewhere, would be good, but if a bad loss is a possibility tomorrow it’ll mean the other got a bad loss today, and they’re competing with one another, guys.

UCF could give Memphis that bad loss later tonight, and if they do that, they’ll be knocking on the door. Tulane and Tulsa are still playing, but Tulsa has no chance of making the NIT (could still make a certain lesser tournament, though) and Tulane’s shot is slim enough to call it zero unless our model surprises me.

Big Ten

Screwed: Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan State, Indiana
Holding the Balloon: Michigan, Rutgers
Cruising for a Stuising:
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style:

The question in the Big Ten is whether Michigan’s unlikability and mere three-games-over-.500 overall record could be enough to, with surges elsewhere, push them our way. We don’t think it’s possible, but we’re beginning to hope. We’re optimists, us NIT fans.

The other question in the Big Ten is whether Rutgers getting all that attention when they were briefly a good basketball team will prove to have been enough to sway a committee that, unfortunately for Rutgers, has access to Rutgers’s results from this year. Rutgers is the college kid in the job interview pointing out all the clubs he was the “president” of on his résumé while the interviewer tries to figure out how someone can record a negative GPA.

The final question in the Big Ten is why Indiana scorned us. Were they inspired by Tom Crean’s firing? Why would that inspire them? Kind of messed up, Indiana. You guys ok up there?

Big 12

Screwed: Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas, Iowa State, TCU, Oklahoma State but in a different way than the others
Holding the Balloon: Oklahoma
Cruising for a Stuising:
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style:

Oklahoma. The Indiana of the south by southwest.

Really, though, Oklahoma’s done, right? They aren’t coming to the NIT? This feels like one of those situations where they got written off too early, came back from the dead, and now all they need is for everyone to acknowledge their existence for them to miss the NIT. Sucks. They almost had ‘em.

For West Virginia and Kansas State, the sub-.500 thing seems likely to have done them in. Unclear if it’s a rule or not, but we’ve yet to see a committee in the modern NIT era put a sub-.500 team in the field as an at-large. Even last year, when there were a ton of solid sub-.500 teams because of the disease. It was almost like they were trying to make a point. Like they were communicating with us through their NIT selections.

Big East

Screwed: Villanova, Providence, UConn, Seton Hall, Marquette, Creighton
Holding the Balloon: Xavier
Cruising for a Stuising:
Ooh That’s a Good Question: St. John’s
Mufasa-Style:

Xavier’s résumé is better than their team, and with everything else going on, I’d imagine they’re with us, but you just don’t really know such things. Not until you know. You know?

Meanwhile, St. John’s is right on the cusp. Just needs someone to fall out or an extra at-large bid to open up and also nobody to pass them. Or, you know, our model could be a little wrong. We kind of expect that to happen once or twice on who makes the field.

Conference USA

Screwed:
Holding the Balloon: North Texas, UAB
Cruising for a Stuising:
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style: Louisiana Tech

Man, I don’t know. That was a good, unexpected win for Louisiana Tech, and a bad-but-not-terrible, unexpected loss for North Texas. UAB is now the conference tournament favorite, though they can come in with a loss tomorrow. North Texas is in uncertain territory. Louisiana Tech could make a case, but they’re now at risk of conscription into the bad tournament, while a loss could keep them from the good tournament. Real catch-22. Is this what that novel’s about?

All Those Mid and Low-Majors Who Are Pretty Good and Might Be Auto-Bids But Would Be At-Large Bids Even If Auto-Bids Didn’t Exist

Screwed: Chattanooga, South Dakota State
Holding the Balloon: New Mexico State, Vermont, Toledo
Cruising for a Stuising: Iona, Towson
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style:

Separating these from the pure automatic bids below because, well, they’re good enough to get bracketed higher than the lowest seeds available (side note: “Get Bracketed!” is the hero’s catchphrase in my Joe Lunardi fan fic).

Vermont’s a huge favorite tomorrow against UMBC, Chattanooga and South Dakota State already won, Toledo and New Mexico State are in doubt but not overwhelming doubt, Iona locked it up. Be more like Iona, ye who tread these paths. And like Towson. Almost forgot to mention Towson.

Missouri Valley

Screwed: Loyola
Holding the Balloon:
Cruising for a Stuising: Northern Iowa
Ooh That’s a Good Question: Missouri State, Drake
Mufasa-Style:

Missouri State and Drake are currently projected, by our model, to finish on the right side of the bubble, but neither is sleeping well, and it’s not for some other reason. It’s because of NIT uncertainty. Schedule your tournament later, MVC! You’re taking years off these folks’ lives!

Northern Iowa got the auto-bid. That’s the move. Would’ve been right around Florida State without it. Now, they get to sleep great all week long.

Mountain West

Screwed: Colorado State, Boise State, San Diego State
Holding the Balloon: Wyoming
Cruising for a Stuising:
Ooh That’s a Good Question: Utah State, UNLV
Mufasa-Style:

Alright, whatever, we’ll include Utah State and UNLV. Hard to see either making it, but each has a few things that make it a strong case. That San Diego invite in 2019 (the WCC San Diego, not San Diego State, I’m not an idiot, Mountain West fans) has us careful about saying never. We’re drawing the line at Furman, though (no hate to Furman, we’d just be really surprised if they got a bid).

Ohio Valley

Screwed: Murray State
Holding the Balloon:
Cruising for a Stuising: Belmont
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style:

Belmont is comfortable. Deservedly comfortable. A thoroughly decent season from the Bruins.

Pac-12

Screwed: Arizona, UCLA, USC
Holding the Balloon:
Cruising for a Stuising: Oregon, Colorado
Ooh That’s a Good Question: Washington State
Mufasa-Style:

Would be very surprising if Washington State made it, would be very surprising if Oregon and Colorado missed it. Colorado might be able to get away with beating Arizona tonight. If that’s something they’re in to. Not trying to pressure them. Would never pressure them on something like that.

SEC

Screwed: Kentucky, Tennessee, Auburn, Arkansas, Alabama
Holding the Balloon: Texas A&M
Cruising for a Stuising: Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina
Ooh That’s a Good Question:
Mufasa-Style: Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt could still climb in, and they might not even need to win to do it. A close game might be enough. Also, they might’ve done enough already. If they lose, they’ll go to Ooh That’s a Good Question territory. Vanderbilt’s firmly in the mix.

Elsewhere, Florida and South Carolina look quite safe, Mississippi State can go ahead and lose now (like, now, guys, don’t play with fire), and Texas A&M had the whole world in their grasp this morning but it may have slipped through their fingers. We get it. It’s hard not to beat teams from that other tournament. We’ll see where the Aggies stand in the morning, when the smoke has cleared (roasted some broccoli earlier and it went fine but I did burn my face a little with steam and also I set off the fire alarms which really freaked out my dog, poor gal).

WCC

Screwed: Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, San Francisco
Holding the Balloon:
Cruising for a Stuising: BYU
Ooh That’s a Good Question: Santa Clara
Mufasa-Style:

Some out there have BYU with a balloon in its hands. We are not those. You’ve done enough, Cougars. You’re ours now.

Santa Clara’s right there with St. John’s and Missouri State and Drake. Kind of anyone’s guess down there at the moment.

Automatic Bid Watch

Automatic bids already locked up (besides those we’ve mentioned):

• Texas State
• Cleveland State

Potential automatic bids we haven’t mentioned yet, along with their probability of grabbing an automatic bid entering today’s games:

• Long Beach State: 78%
• Alcorn State: 72%
• Montana State: 60%
• Nicholls State: 60%
• Princeton: 53%
• Norfolk State: 42%

Between these guys, Toledo, and New Mexico State, we’d expect five automatic bids to materialize. The fewer the better for those in Ooh That’s a Good Question-land. The more the worse for those in Ooh That’s a Good Question-land.

Summing It Up

Screwed: 40 teams
Holding the Balloon: 18 teams
Cruising for a Stuising: 14 teams
Ooh That’s a Good Question: 8 teams
Mufasa-Style: 5 teams
Locked-In Automatic Bids: 2 teams
Potential Additional Uncategorized Automatic Bids: 6 teams

Overall, then, we’re pretty confident in about half the field right now. 18 teams. Of the remaining 14, we’d expect most, a larcenous baker’s dozen, to come from those Holding the Balloon, with around three coming from those of whom one could say, “Ooh, That’s a Good Question,” and their friends doing the Mufasa.

Big NITe ahead. See you out there.