We’re four weeks from Selection Sunday, March 15. Saturday’s results in college basketball set up a number of big bubble games this next week, although the next Saturday on the slate, Feb. 21, is noticeably devoid of big contests. Here are just some of the details worth taking from a plot twist-laden Saturday:
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5 – HEXES, CURSES, OR THINGS THAT ARE HARD TO EASILY EXPLAIN
The continuation of a given outcome; the duplication of a series of events; the creation of a deja vu moment — these are hard to come by in sports, but college basketball churned them out left and right on Saturday.
Let’s start in the Colonial Athletic Association. William & Mary led the league and was working on a 14-game homecourt winning streak. The Tribe faced a Delaware team with only six wins on the season.
Delaware won. The Blue Hens won their ninth straight game over Bill and Mary, including a win in the CAA tournament final a year ago, which kept the Tribe from making their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. Delaware lives to make William & Mary’s existence miserable.
Other examples from Saturday: Florida State won its tenth straight game against Georgia Tech. Kansas State not only beat Oklahoma again this season, but it did so in the exact same manner: Marcus Foster hit a tiebreaking three in the final 10 seconds from the right wing. Ridiculous, right? But it happened.
Florida lost its sixth game by one or two points this season, and its second one-point game in the past 72 hours, at Texas A&M. The Gators lost both one-point games on a bucket inside the final 10 seconds, followed by a failure to get a shot off in the final three seconds.
You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
4 – CONFERENCE CHASE UPDATES
The conference races are coming into focus. In the power leagues, the main development is that Virginia survived a scare against Wake Forest. The Cavaliers are a highly diminished team without Justin Anderson. If they can hang on the next two to three weeks in his absence, they can still win the ACC and get a No. 1 seed in the East Region. Villanova took control of the Big East, as TSS basketball writer Scott King noted in his analysis of Villanova-Butler on Saturday.
In the non-power conferences, several stories developed: San Diego State took a big step toward another Mountain West title by fending off Colorado State. The Aztecs have a head-to-head tiebreaker over Wyoming and will be in great shape if they can handle a road trip to New Mexico this week.
Yale beat Princeton to widen the gap between the top tier and the second tier in the Ivy League. If Harvard beats Princeton later this week, the Ivy pretty much becomes a two-team race — Harvard and Yale — until the end of the season.
Murray State became the first team to clinch a conference title, wrapping up the Ohio Valley and moving to 13-0 in the league. The Racers therefore become the first team to clinch at NIT berth if they fail to win their conference tournament.
The Colonial got tighter, as UNC-Wilmington tied William & Mary atop the standings. Cincinnati’s loss to Tulane makes The American a three-team race. Third-place Temple visits first-place SMU and second-place Tulsa this upcoming week.
In the Northeast Conference, Saint Francis (NY) — distinct from conference companion Saint Francis (PA) — pushed its winning streak to six, building a three-game lead over Robert Morris and Bryant. Saint Francis (NY) goes by the nickname of the Terriers, while Saint Francis (PA) is the Red Flash. With that clarification out of the way, it can be said that the Terriers are one of five teams (William & Mary is another) that have failed to make all 76 NCAA tournaments since the event began in 1939. It would be an amazing story if just one of those two teams reached the Dance floor.
In the Big Sky, Eastern Washington lost, enabling Sacramento State and Montana to move just half a game out of first place.
3 – BUBBLE MOVERS
The notion of a “bubble mover” is one team that wins or loses a game to change its bubble status. The team it beats — or loses to — is secondary in the conversation. This is different from a “bubble battleground,” in which two bubble teams meet in a high-stakes contest. (We’ll offer several examples of “bubble battlegrounds” shortly, in item number two on this list.)
Saturday showcased several upward bubble movers, none bigger than North Carolina State, which scored a second top-10 win of the season, this one on the road at Louisville. The Wolfpack — the LSU of the ACC, really — can be so good when they’re on, but the switch is usually set to “off.” At any rate, these two massive scalps counterbalance all the bad losses this team has suffered. The Pack soared up the leaderboard and could very possibly become a team akin to 2001 Georgia, which got an 8 seed despite 14 losses before Selection Sunday.
Other upward bubble movers: Pittsburgh, which beat North Carolina, and Michigan State, which beat Ohio State.
As for downward bubble movers, Boise State endured an awful loss at Fresno State, leading the way among “teams that hurt themselves a lot on Saturday.”
Other downward bubble movers: Cincinnati (lost at home to Tulane), George Washington (lost to VCU), Seton Hall (lost to Providence), Georgia (lost at home to Auburn), and Ole Miss (lost to Arkansas).
2 – BUBBLE BATTLEGROUNDS
“Bubble batttlegrounds,” as mentioned above, are two-way bubble games. Both teams, not just one, sit on the bubble, which is best defined more broadly at this point in time. The shrinking of the bubble typically takes care of itself during Championship Fortnight, the two-week conference tournament extravaganza.
Saturday witnessed three bubble battlegrounds: St. John’s beat Xavier; UCLA beat Oregon; and LSU whacked Tennessee. How do these results change the landscape?
Xavier badly needs to beat Cincinnati this week in a non-conference clash. If the Musketeers lose that one, they’re in noticeable trouble, given their many non-conference stumbles from the autumnal months.
UCLA is now in increasingly good shape of getting in. As long as the Bruins don’t stumble at Arizona State in their next game, they should enter the Pac-12 tournament needing no more than one win to feel fairly comfortable on Selection Sunday. The Bruins do want Stanford (a team they swept this season) to do well, however. That would help.
As for LSU-Tennessee, the Tigers stopped the bleeding, but the bigger story is that the Vols are now on the bubble ropes. They must beat Kentucky in their next game if they realistically want to go Dancing. A loss to UK basically means UT must win the SEC tournament to make the field.
1 – THE BUBBLE GREW ON SATURDAY
The bubble became larger, not smaller, on Saturday. Teams in “NIT” territory such as Pitt and N.C. State moved toward the good side of the bubble. Teams such as Georgia and Ole Miss — still with good chances of getting in — made their lives more difficult with home losses, Georgia’s being especially noticeable. When teams in good situations stumble, and teams in bad situations recover, that’s a bubble-enlargement recipe if one ever existed.
