Every college basketball season, there’s at least one team from either a mid-major conference or a “tweener” conference (a league downscaled to a much lower status by conference realignment) with a bubble resume that’s always inconvenient… but always the same.
You know that team.
It’s a team which, in non-conference play, makes the most of the big games it plays against power-conference teams. Given fewer bites at the apple when compared to a high major in deep conference loaded with NCAA tournament-caliber squads, that mid-major or tweener gets the job done.
Then, however, when conference play begins, this team — having achieved richly against the Big Boys in college basketball — feels the pressure of having to validate its status as A Team That Could Surprise Some People In March.
That team becomes a target in its own (conference) neighborhood.
It gets picked off.
The resume becomes, as bracketologists like to say, “busy.” However, the key distinction between this kind of bubble team and a power-conference bubble team is that in conference play, the mid-major or tweener lacks the ability to rack up quality wins that can create substantial upward movement on the bubble. Purdue, for instance, can overcome a terrible non-conference season by going 10-4 in the Big Ten and being able to win future games against Ohio State and Illinois. The Boilermakers can rather clearly and cleanly play their way into the field of 68 by winning both of those contests. Purdue has a busy resume, but the Boilermakers can continue to do “business” late in the season, in the heart of the conference schedule.
The mid-major or tweener team which rocked in the non-conference portion of the schedule and then sustained several wounds in its own conference does not have that same window of opportunity.
THAT TEAM exists, more or less, at least once each season.
This year’s foremost example is Old Dominion.
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The Monarchs were outstanding in non-conference competition. Their only blemish came against Illinois State, which is not a great team, but not a tomato can, either. The Redbirds were inside the top 90 of the RPI as of Feb. 25. ODU, meanwhile, took care of UNC-Wilmington and William & Mary, two of the four teams that entered Feb. 25 tied for first place in the Colonial Athletic Association.
ODU — a school located in Norfolk, Virginia — played its three former CAA rivals from the Commonwealth, all of which have relocated to the Atlantic 10. ODU beat George Mason on the road and beat both Richmond and VCU at home. The triumph over VCU gives Old Dominion a top-15 RPI win. That’s very rare among teams from conferences outside the Power 5.
The Missouri Valley is the one mid-major league with two teams inside the top 20 of the RPI, and Northern Iowa beat Wichita State earlier this season. (The two teams stage a rematch this upcoming weekend.) Among teams outside the power conferences, few have better wins than Old Dominion’s triumph over VCU. Everything about ODU’s non-conference profile except for the Illinois State loss looks very good, if not excellent.
Then consider the fact that ODU also defeated SEC bubble team LSU on a neutral floor. The Monarchs got a lot of work done outside their conference.
In their conference? That’s another story.
Conference USA has been downgraded by the departures of Memphis and Tulsa — Memphis as a powerhouse, Tulsa as that second- or third-place team which could make the NIT and represent a decent (not great, but not value-free) scalp on a resume. SMU was never a factor when it was part of Conference USA, but the current version of the Mustangs under Larry Brown would have enhanced the league’s profile. Houston, should it improve under Kelvin Sampson, could have bolstered C-USA in the coming years, but we’ll never get to find out now that the Cougars have also relocated to The American.
The fact of the matter is that the 2015 iteration of Conference USA is weaksauce. First-place Louisiana Tech lost to Syracuse, Temple, and North Carolina State out of conference, not to mention stubbing its toe against Louisiana-Lafayette. The Bulldogs are not even close to meriting bubble consideration if they fail to win the C-USA tournament. Second-place UTEP has more of a case for bubble consideration, but not much of one. The Miners beat Xavier — a team that’s going to be seeded somewhere from 8 to 11 in the NCAA tournament — but then lost to Washington, Colorado State, and New Mexico State.
Old Dominion had the best non-conference portfolio of any C-USA team, but the Monarchs — by losing to middle-of-the-pack conference foes such as Middle Tennessee and Texas-San Antonio — showed an alarming level of frailty. If ODU’s two losses to the top tier of C-USA (second-place UTEP and third-place UAB; ODU defeated Louisiana Tech) were its only blemishes in league play, the Monarchs would have an excellent case for inclusion. As it is, however, they can’t afford another bad loss, which — being in such a weak conference — means they have to win their next six games just to have a shot at an at-large bid.
Winning six games means cleaning up in the four remaining regular-season contests beginning Thursday, Feb. 26, at Rice, and then winning two C-USA tournament games (quarterfinals and semifinals). Should ODU make the tournament final, and if either Louisiana Tech or UTEP is the opponent in that game, a one-basket loss might get some sympathy from the Selection Committee.
Yet, while your heart might go out to ODU in light of its very familiar bubble predicament, your brain knows that ODU’s path to an at-large bid is incredibly slim. The odds of getting an at-large bid (likely a First Four assignment to Dayton) are not good. The Monarchs really need to win the C-USA tournament to make the Big Dance.
It’s not fair, mind you. Teams that flourish when they get a small number of bites at the apple should be rewarded more than other teams that have so many more chances to do something… and fail. (Stanford, UCLA, and Georgia are really good examples, especially if Georgia can’t beat Kentucky next week.)
Yet, it’s the law of the jungle in college hoops: If you’re an upstart team from a weak conference, and you show that you’re good enough to beat the big boys, you have to dominate your conference brethren during the regular season to get a favorable chance at an at-large berth on Selection Sunday.
That’s the world faced by Old Dominion. The Monarchs are headed for a royal disappointment unless they can stay scorching hot over the next three weeks.
