March!
NIT Bubble Watch!
I’m gonna go get a tuna salad sandwich after I post this!
Below is our latest look at the NIT bubble picture, guided by our own Joe Stunardi’s college basketball model.
Guidelines:
- Too Hot: >5% NIT probability, <50%
- Too Cold: >5% NIT probability, <50%
- Just Right: >50% NIT probability
- Lock: 100% NIT probability (this can only happen once a team’s conference tournament is completed)
Conferences are ordered by average number of NIT teams. Conferences with one or zero teams in the picture will be treated as one small mess of NIT frailty, down at the bottom.
This NIT Bubble Watch is for Friday, March 1st. If you would like the most current NIT Bubble Watch, you can always find that here. We will have another NIT Bubble Watch tomorrow morning to set the stage for the Saturday slate. Unless the tuna salad gives me food poisoning. If that happens, jury’s out.
ACC
- Too Hot: Wake Forest, Virginia
- Too Cold: Miami (FL), Boston College
- Just Right: Pitt, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, NC State, Florida State
Big Ten
- Too Hot: Nebraska, Michigan State
- Too Cold: Rutgers, Indiana
- Just Right: Ohio State, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota
Nebraska isn’t dead yet.
We’re a little scared of losing Ohio State, who would selfishly be a dream NIT Final Four team because the fanbase is so big and located close to Indianapolis. But damn if we don’t want Nebrasketball in our tournament, so for as guilty as this makes us feel, we were excited about the Huskers losing last night in Columbus.
As for the Buckeyes? You may have won the Jamison Battle. We will win the war.
(Someone remind me to make a lot of “Et tu, Brutus?” jokes if Ohio State does somehow not end up playing in the NIT.)
In the other Big Ten action yesterday, Rutgers pounded Michigan into a pulp in Dug McDaniel’s first trip beyond state lines in a couple months. This was all surprisingly normal. It is weird how quickly we get used to things.
The win pushes Rutgers pretty close to the NIT bubble. Fourth team out in today’s bracketology. Rutgers at Nebraska on Sunday is the Game of the NITe of the Weekend.
Big East
- Too Hot: St. John’s, Villanova
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Butler, Xavier, Seton Hall, Providence
Big 12
- Too Hot: Oklahoma, TCU, Texas Tech
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Cincinnati, Kansas State, UCF
Atlantic 10
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold: Loyola (IL), UMass, George Mason, Duquesne
- Just Right: Richmond, St. Bonaventure, VCU
One A-10 game toNITe (that we care about, and that means there’s only one in total, because we care about all A-10 games):
- Dayton at Loyola
Big opportunity for the Ramblers. Not a last stand—it’s too early for that—but a real good chance to climb up the NIT board. Will salvation come to the Gentile (Arena)?
Pac-12
- Too Hot: Colorado
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Oregon, Washington, Utah
Utah drew a little closer to not playing in the NIT, calling Stanford a bunch of nerds last night in Salt Lake City (in true Utahn fashion, they did it with their actions, not their words). Washington pushed the dagger a little further into UCLA, which means I was very wrong when I said UCLA was about to surge into the field (I said this 15 days ago and they have gone 0–3 since), but is good because Mick Cronin was publicly musing about declining an NIT bid earlier this week. Fuck you too, Mick. (Using that as a name, not as a slur for Irish-Americans.)
American Athletic Conference
- Too Hot: Florida Atlantic
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Memphis, SMU, South Florida
Is Memphis back??
The Tigers walloped ECU in Greenville (which is in eastern North Carolina in ECU’s case, even though there is also a Greenville in northwestern South Carolina, something that confused me for years), and after momentarily plummeting past us a couple weeks ago, Penny Hardaway’s team is on stable ground once more. It’s like people forgot this guy’s won an NIT. (I didn’t forget this, but I was very loudly doubting Memphis.)
SEC
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold: Georgia
- Just Right: Mississippi, Texas A&M, LSU
Missouri Valley
- Too Hot: Indiana State
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Bradley, Drake
Sun Belt
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold: Appalachian State
- Just Right: James Madison
There was enough upward pressure on the NIT bubble last night that App State is into “Too Cold” territory, but a lot of that is how likely App State is to win the Sun Belt Tournament (30%). 30% chance they miss the NIT high. 43% chance they make the NIT. 27% chance they make the NIT low. They need wins right now more than losses, so they stay in the “Too Cold” zone. At some point, it becomes impossible to make NIT Bracketology make sense.
This evening:
- James Madison at Coastal Carolina
- Arkansas State at Appalachian State
JMU faces little risk of missing the NIT if they lose the Sun Belt Tournament. Play for seeding, Dukes. App State, on the other hand…you guys need to win.
Mountain West
- Too Hot: New Mexico, Boise State, Colorado State
- Too Cold: UNLV
- Just Right:
Utah State and Nevada aren’t completely out of the picture, and losses tonight from either would be bad, but we will resist the urge to hype those two games as the beginnings of epic NIT comebacks until they actually happen.
Ivy League
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold: Yale, Cornell
- Just Right: Princeton
All three of our Ivy League friends play tonight, and none play each other. The list:
- Columbia at Princeton
- Dartmouth at Yale
- Cornell at Penn
Cornell and Yale have a lot to gain, while Princeton’s mostly playing for seeding until we get to the Ivy League Tournament. It’s going to be hard for Yale to gain much ground, but Penn’s at least a road game for the Big Red, who could use gains in NET and kenpom. (I’m comfortable making this only about numbers because it’s the Ivy League and I think their minds can handle it.)
WCC
- Too Hot: Gonzaga
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: San Francisco
I will admit. There is some comedy to this concept where we all said, “Gonzaga sure needs this win at San Francisco!” and then got all settled in for a great second half and then saw Gonzaga come out of the locker room and use San Francisco players as dental floss. That was a massacre. It was bad enough that San Francisco’s almost down into “Too Cold.” Gonzaga destroyed San Francisco.
I will say: It’s a really bad look to move a huge game off your campus for the sake of “attendance” and “atmosphere” and “exposure to recruits” and then play in front of 12,000 empty seats. Location probably didn’t make the difference, but good lord, San Francisco. That was one of the dumbest things we’ve seen a program do all year. All for 2,000 extra ticket sales. War Memorial would have been bursting at the seams.
Gonzaga isn’t entirely out of the NIT picture—lose at Saint Mary’s and lose in the WCC Tournament and you bet your ass we’ll talk about them, especially if the loss comes in the semis. But losing in the WCC Tournament semis would probably require losing to San Francisco, and…well, you saw what happened last night on a neutral court
The NIT Frontiers, Where the Air Is Thick but the Faithful Soldier On
- Too Hot: Grand Canyon, McNeese
- Too Cold: Samford, UC Irvine
- Just Right:
The Anteaters!
Our lone mover today across categories is UC Irvine, the folks who made Zot famous. Nice win last night. 25-point margin in Northridge.
The path is highly specific for UCI from here—they probably need to go exactly 4–1 in the exact right order (win the first four, lose the last one) and even that might not be enough—but they’ve done enough to have a chance, and we will never not celebrate that. Especially when you’re the Anteaters.
**
Total count:
- Too hot – 18 teams (18 yesterday)
- Too cold – 15 teams (13 yesterday)
- Just right – 33 teams (34 yesterday)
See you tomorrow, Bubble Watchers.
