This NIT Bubble Watch is for Sunday, March 10th. If you would like the most current NIT Bubble Watch, you can always find that here.
Conference tournaments churn on, and we have more respects to pay: High Point, Little Rock, and Central Connecticut State, we wish you’d done what you did this year in a different era. We wish this era had not arrived! We will miss you in this NIT.
It was quite the day yesterday. I don’t know where to start. Darius Johnson tore TCU apart, cementing UCF’s NIT status but possibly costing the Knights a home game? Kyle Filipowski tripped someone, and suddenly Wake Forest can win again? Bradley, meanwhile, the second-winningest team in college basketball history, is close to an NIT lock.
Welcome to NIT Bubble Watch. As always, we’re 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 are lumped together at the bottom. A junk drawer, if you will.
ACC
- Too Hot: Virginia
- Too Cold: NC State, Florida State, Boston College
- Just Right: Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Wake Forest
I do wonder if there’s a cosmic connection now between Kyle Filipowski and the kid he collided with during the court-storming in Winston-Salem. After that collision, Wake didn’t win for two weeks. Then, Filipowski trips Harrison Ingram, and Wake takes down Clemson? Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but…it’s pretty suspicious stuff. If Wake wants to make this NIT, they need contact involving Flip’s leg, and they need it soon. That win helped them too much. There’s no time to waste!
NC State lost to Pitt, and that does hurt NC State’s chances, but the Wolfpack get to open the ACC Tournament against Louisville, and then they might draw Syracuse, who—no offense—I believe has a negative point differential this year against Division I teams. (Hilarious move by the ACC to whine so much that we have to preface statistics with “no offense.” You guys win. Reality has offended you enough that we are treating it like an opinion.)
With the loss at Florida State, Miami is out of our window of interest, which feels good. I’m happy switching from 9-bid ACC talk to 8-bid ACC talk if it means Miami fans are a little ashamed. (Again, this is why you don’t say mean things to NIT-supporting protesters at the NCAA T*urnament Final Four. Those lunatics hold grudges.)
Virginia handled Georgia Tech on a day a lot of other teams made NIT moves, which was mean of them. Virginia Tech survived a growing Notre Dame. Boston College won against Louisville. We can at least say that for what they did.
Big East
- Too Hot: St. John’s, Seton Hall
- Too Cold: Xavier
- Just Right: Butler, Providence, Villanova
There was a moment last night when it looked like Providence might take down UConn and get themselves out of the NIT. There was a moment yesterday morning when it looked like St. John’s might lose to Georgetown and get themselves into the NIT. There were a lot of moments yesterday afternoon when it looked like Xavier would beat Marquette and keep their NIT at-large path vibrantly alive.
Instead, Providence sticks with us, St. John’s and its tantalizing head coach remain on the wrong side of the threshold, and Xavier either has to finish with the second-best NET of any non-NC*A Tournament Big East team, win two games at Madison Square Garden, or get the NIT committee to accept a sub-.500 team as an at-large. Good luck, Muskies. Maybe in a parallel universe you and we are dancing with Brad Colbert.
The big one, of course, was Villanova’s comeback-turned-heartbreaker against Creighton. I have a few things to say.
The first is that Villanova shouldn’t play games at the Wells Fargo Center. Stop trying to be Philadelphia’s professional college basketball team. Go back to the suburbs. If Villanova’s playing on a real home court, Villanova wins that game.
The second is that Trey Alexander flipped from goat to hero amazingly fast, and that is a very Creighton Basketball thing to do.
The third is that the selection committees caring how good a team’s overall win/loss record is (Villanova might make the NIT because they might only finish two or three games above .500) incentivizes weak nonconference scheduling. It’s fine for it to be a criterion, but that’s the effect, and I don’t think people talk about that enough.
Anyway, would love to get Nova back with us. Think they’re better equipped to make a run this year. (They don’t suck like they did most of last year, and they wouldn’t have to play at Liberty.)
In the nightcap, Seton Hall left no doubt against DePaul. We’re almost definitely not getting Seton Hall. At least they didn’t tease us.
Big 12
- Too Hot: Oklahoma
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: UCF, Kansas State, Cincinnati, TCU
I don’t know if I’m supposed to believe our model or not about TCU. Joe’s offering reasons to not believe it, but then he’s offering reasons to believe it alongside them? And he built it? I am a touch bamboozled.
Either way, TCU’s at the very least in the NIT milieu, and I’m happy to have them here. Back in 2017, the year I first ran that fated NIT pool, one of the many funny things that made me fall in love with this tournament was that Jamie Dixon tore it up and seemed fatigued by the exercise. He still held the DeJuan Blair association in my mind. I thought of him as a non-NIT coach. I joked about him telling his wife to go enjoy New York City instead of coming to the NIT Championship. Save yourself.
Fast forward to 2024, and the guy not only won an NIT in 2017, but made the championship in 2019 and spent time near each bubble in 2020 and 2021. We associate TCU with the NIT now, and we associate Jamie Dixon with TCU. It’s cool to see someone redefine themselves for the better. (Imagine a Pitt vs. TCU NIT Championship. A few thousand people would be fired up about that!)
UCF was in a tricky spot, because if they did knock TCU in they’ll probably lose their automatic bid (and home game) as a result, but hard to hate on the move. Those auto bids are fickle, and Kansas State made moves towards stealing it with the win over Iowa State. (We aren’t ready to consider losing K-State from the NIT on the high side, but I know they’re getting mentions up there.)
Cincinnati whooped West Virginia.
Oklahoma lost to Texas, clinging to life.
Big Ten
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold: Rutgers, Minnesota
- Just Right: Ohio State, Iowa, Maryland, Indiana
Northwestern went Carl Spackler on the Gophers, and it’s looking grim for us and Goldy. Today:
- Ohio State at Rutgers
- Michigan State at Indiana
- Illinois at Iowa
- Maryland at Penn State
Huge consequences in all of these. In order:
Ohio State could still miss the NIT. Rutgers could still make it. Lot of pent-up frustration on both those teams, too, I’d imagine. Fight watch. (Rutgers would win.)
In other frustrated climes, Michigan State is still looking to prove something, while Indiana is right on top of the NIT bubble. A funny thing, to get back to overall W/L: If Indiana beats Michigan State, they will both be 18–13.
Iowa’s gaining ground by attrition on the bubble race, although I do think there’s a gap between the NIT 1-Seeds and the NIT 2-Seeds that isn’t getting a lot of airtime. This win wouldn’t be that surprising, but the hype could prove valuable in the Hawkeyes’ quest to escape our grasp.
In a situation parallel to Xavier’s, Maryland needs to beat Penn State to guarantee themselves at least a .500 finish. They do have a shot at an automatic bid, and we aren’t 100% sure the NIT committee won’t allow sub-.500 teams into the field, but our best guess is that this is make or break for the Terrapins. What a scene on a Sunday NITe in State College. Let’s all sit with that for a second.
.
.
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Moving on.
Atlantic 10
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold: VCU, Duquesne, UMass, George Mason
- Just Right: Richmond, Loyola (IL)
You ever get kicked out of a bar and make sure to tip a bunch of stools over and spill a lot of drinks on your way out?
If Travis Ford is out at SLU, taking an immersion blender to St. Bonaventure’s buttocks and knocking the Bonnies off the NIT Big Board was a very A-10 way to go.
Duquesne survived, but that was an ugly result and it combined with where the A-10 bracket landed to hurt their chances. George Mason whopped Richmond, putting the Patriots back around the bubble but most likely not affecting Richmond’s ability to make the NIT (might cost the Spiders a home game). Loyola took care of business against La Salle while winning a share of the A-10 title, and in an interesting development I haven’t seen a single person who spends their energy complaining about the NIT’s automatic bid rule change (something that might have been necessary for the NIT’s survival) mentioning that Loyola, a mid-major regular season champion, is probably going to make the NIT because of it.
Pac-12
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Oregon, Washington, Utah
*Jean-Ralphio voice*
Maybe Andy Enfield’s not that bad at coaching basketbaaaaaaaall!
Goodbye, Colorado. USC? You’re not in the picture yet.
I love what Oregon and Utah did yesterday. Nearly four minutes at the end of a big conference game and they combined to make zero field goals. What a win for the Ducks. Both teams look ready for their invitation.
American Athletic Conference
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Memphis, South Florida, SMU
South Florida finally lost, confirming that South Florida losing is still a thing that’s possible, which greatly increases South Florida’s NIT chances in our gut. Had South Florida never lost another basketball game, South Florida would not have made the NIT.
Memphis failed to keep FAU in the room with us.
Today:
- SMU at UAB
SMU can afford a loss, but they might not want to test it.
SEC
- Too Hot: Mississippi State
- Too Cold: Georgia, Arkansas
- Just Right: Mississippi, LSU
We might have to adjust how we slot the teams into these three categories, because our model is really high on Texas A&M missing the NIT. We’ll see what it says tomorrow when it’s heard from NET. And what the people who are good at this say.
A&M blitzed Mississippi in Oxford, and while that’s not all that impressive, it was probably important. If our latest rendezvous with Buzz Williams remains the one in 2022, we will miss the man.
LSU almost coughed it up against Mizzou, but they didn’t, so they stay in the right spot.
Mississippi State lost their fourth straight, racing to the bottom with TCU. We are that bottom.
Georgia lost to Auburn, leaving them needing big help or a big weekend in Nashville.
Arkansas almost took down Alabama, and while the win would have really revitalized the Hogs’ NIT hopes, even the loss has them back on the edge of the picture. They’re 16 spots behind LSU heading into a game on Wednesday against Vanderbilt. That’s a big deficit, but it’s not impossible.
Missouri Valley
- Too Hot: Drake, Indiana State
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Bradley
Bradley is not quite a lock. Very close, but not quite there. The other two:
- Indiana State vs. Drake
It seems possible we’ll only be a 1-bid MVC kind of tournament. Not sure, but it seems possible, especially if today’s game’s a classic. If we want a second NIT team from the MVC, we want Drake to lose badly. If we want Indiana State, we need a blowout Sycamore loss and a very big answered prayer.
*James Bond voice*
Madness!
Arch Madness.
Mountain West
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: UNLV, New Mexico
Amidst the nonstop courtstorming debate, I think we can all agree that sending your conference rival to the brink of the NIT is a good reason to storm the court. Classy gesture, Utah State.
Credit to UNLV for the routine loss in Reno. It’s hard to make things routine in Reno. I learned yesterday that one of Reno’s firetrucks was the fifth-most active in the country in 2022.
Sun Belt
- Too Hot:
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: Appalachian State, James Madison
After surviving overtime against Georgia Southern, App State’s now done enough that they shouldn’t miss the NIT low. If we’re going to get both of these guys, though, we need at least one to get upset today:
- Appalachian State vs. Arkansas State
- James Madison vs. Texas State
Good luck to all in Pensacola. Whether they’re there for basketball or not.
WCC
- Too Hot: Saint Mary’s
- Too Cold:
- Just Right: San Francisco
San Francisco got the job done against Portland. Still hanging around. Might not need a win, but…
More tomorrow.
Ivy League
- Too Hot: Princeton
- Too Cold: Cornell
- Just Right:
Yale was, like Loyola, poised to maybe make the NIT as a regular season conference champion thanks to the rule that eliminated NIT automatic bids for regular season conference champions. (Yale would have won a share.) Instead, the Bulldogs blew a 15-point second half lead, falling in overtime on an Aaron Cooley three for Brown. Disaster in New Haven.
With that dealt with, I would like to talk about NET manipulation.
If someone were to manipulate a formula derived via machine learning, wouldn’t that someone have to be pretty smart? No offense to the Big 12, but wouldn’t we expect that behavior to start with Stanford, or someone in the Ivy League? I bring this up because Princeton and Cornell each won on the road by 22 points yesterday, and I was told that beating bad teams by a lot was NET manipulation.
Cornell, welcome to the edge of the mix. We won’t get a two-bid Ivy, but nobody has to know that.
The Hive of Miscellany
- Too Hot: Grand Canyon, McNeese
- Too Cold: Samford, UC Irvine
- Just Right:
Big win from Samford, avoiding the bad loss to Mercer. Now they just need to avoid the bad loss to Furman and hope tomorrow’s can be a good loss. That’s your path, Bulldogs. (It’s possible they’ll make it with a loss to the Paladins, but they’d be very bubbly.)
Grand Canyon closed their regular season with a win at Cal Baptist, which shouldn’t matter too much but could affect seeding if the Lopes find their way down here. UC Irvine beat Cal State-Fullerton in Fullerton to keep a very narrow path alive.
Today:
- Samford vs. Furman
Whoops. Already talked about this one.
**
Total count:
- Too hot – 11 teams (17 yesterday)
- Too cold – 15 teams (15 yesterday)
- Just right – 31 teams (30 yesterday)
I’ll see you out there, but I might be a little distracted. I’ve just received word that Fire Ant Dan’s back in town.
