Oklahoma was riding high. They took down Kansas. They beat a Covid-ridden Texas in Austin. They even took down Alabama. It was the first three games of a surprising 6-1 stretch for the Sooners.
Then, they lost to Kansas State. And now, a heartbreaking sweep by their in-state rivals later, OU’s projected to land as a 9-seed.
To be fair, most of this is just the Kansas State loss. The OK State sweep isn’t all that surprising, to us or the model. It was about 25% likely, which 25% of simulations being OU wins and 50% being splits. That’s how tossups work. But it’s still striking, and the resulting narrative—built by seven games, torn down by three—is a good reminder of how big of rollercoasters narratives ride in college hoops.
Today’s biggest movement in our bracketology, in which no one entered or exited the field:
Moving Up: Oklahoma State, Oregon
The Pokes were on the cusp of being a 5-seed entering last night, but with another big win, their median projection has now changed enough to put them ahead of Texas and onto the 4-line. What a saga it’s been in Stillwater. Thrilling conclusion coming?
Meanwhile, Oregon, who dipped their toes in NIT waters at one point in recent weeks, climbed back to safety last night as they dispatched Arizona in Eugene. Ducks aren’t in an amazing place overall, but they’re at least relatively safely in the field.
Moving Down: Rutgers, St. Bonaventure
Holy butts. Rutgers, just to warn you, might drop more when our model gets today’s NET before tomorrow’s update (the proxy we use doesn’t handle blowouts well, which is on the fix list for next year but only really harms things by creating some mild delays in the full scope of certain results becoming known). Is Nebraska about to make some heads roll in the Big Ten Tournament?
For the Bonnies, the loss to Dayton hurts but doesn’t kill. They’re no longer A-10 favorites, but they weren’t overwhelming favorites to begin with, so I don’t believe our model added any collateral losses to their median projection. Just a tough loss to a middling team. Still probably safe, but at a much higher risk of playing Gonzaga in the second round now.
***
We almost-finalized the ACC yesterday, meaning we now have 14 conferences left to almost-finalize (which constitutes eliminating unrescheduled postponed games from our model and locking in the conference tournament format, without adjusting for one or more of tiebreakers/home court in the tournament/reseeding). We didn’t see any big movement from ACC teams as a result of the almost-finalization, which is a good sign for the impact of that process with other conferences. Our assumption was that it wasn’t going to be a huge deal, but it feels good personally to have that confirmed.
Conference tournament probabilities from leagues with games yesterday and/or today:
Horizon League
Wright State: 67.5%
Cleveland State: 14.0%
Detroit Mercy: 7.3%
Northern Kentucky: 4.5%
Oakland: 3.6%
Youngstown State: 1.9%
Milwaukee: 0.9%
Purdue-Fort Wayne: 0.4%
Big South
Winthrop: 76.4%
Radford: 11.6%
Campbell: 8.0%
Longwood: 4.0%
