Here's the bubble on the morning of Friday, March 15, 2024, as seen by the Dance Chance:
3/13 3/10 Seed Seed Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds %Chg %Chg 1-seed 3/14 3/13 3/10 37. Pittsburgh ACC 22-10 65.9 +5.4 +4.0 -- 10 12p 11p 38. Dayton A10 24-7 65.9 -13.8 -14.3 -- 10 9 9 39. Northwestern B10 21-10 65.4 -2.9 -5.3 -- 10 10 10 40. Virginia ACC 23-9 61.7 +0.9 -2.3 -- 10 11p 11
Does everyone really think Pittsburgh isn't in the field after beating Wake? They look like a solid 10-seed right now, and probably can survive a loss to North Carolina in today's game. But thank Dayton for the compression in percentage odds we see here. The Flyers' loss to Duquesne didn't kick them out of the field but it shrank the bubble by one key slot. Now even Northwestern and Virginia have to sweat losing today, though the Wildcats are probably ok if they fall to Wisconsin, and the Cavaliers caught a break—they face N.C. State instead of Duke (that's two breaks, if you count surviving Boston College in overtime).
3/13 3/10 Seed Seed Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds %Chg %Chg 1-seed 3/14 3/13 3/10 41. Ohio St. B10 20-12 60.8 +6.2 +2.7 -- 11 12p 12p 42. Florida Atlantic Amer 24-7 59.4 -7.5 -11.0 -- 11 10 10 43. Oklahoma B12 20-12 58.1 -4.8 -9.8 -- 11p 11 10 44. Seton Hall BE 20-12 56.2 -5.7 -6.5 -- 11p 11 11p 45. St. John's BE 20-12 55.9 +10.7 +7.9 -- 11p 46. Indiana St. MVC 28-6 55.8 -9.0 -9.6 -- 11p 11 11
This is crunch time at the bubble, and every team is an 11-seed now, and the waterline is at #46 in the S-curve. Ohio State beat Iowa and rose to the top 11-seed, though other Bracketologists are loathe to put the Buckeyes in the field. They also play Illinois today and that might seal their fate one way or another. Florida Atlantic didn't even play and dropped to an 11-seed as other teams gained wins that helped them pass the Owls, something that also happened to Indiana State, who is suddenly in a lot of trouble! Mid-majors don't benefit a lot from their wins, so the Owls had better win the American, and the Sycamores just have to pray. It seems that Toledo's loss in the MAC tournament hurt them, as that was one of their better neutral-court wins. They looked fine after losing to Drake, but now they're right on the cusp.
Ironically Oklahoma looks to be in decent shape just because they can't lose any more games. Unlike St. John's who has to face UConn and doesn't have a lot of room to spare. Another irony—the Red Storm just beat Seton Hall who may hold on to their spot. Sometimes the Committee looks at situations like this and makes a call, though, when something like losing to a 1-seed hurts your NET—or RPI back in the day (though just playing a 1-seed often helped your RPI, so that was the one situation where RPI was a "better" tool!)
3/13 3/10 Seed Seed Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds %Chg %Chg 1-seed 3/14 3/13 3/10 47. Mississippi St. SEC 20-12 54.6 +7.2 +3.7 -- 12p 48. Wake Forest ACC 20-13 53.3 -16.5 -9.8 -- 10 11 49. Michigan St. B10 19-13 50.6 +12.9 +11.4 -- 50. Providence BE 21-12 50.3 +12.3 +16.2 -- 51. Princeton Ivy 24-3 50.2 -0.8 -3.8 -- 12 12 12 52. Texas A&M SEC 19-13 48.7 +7.2 +4.7 -- 53. Cincinnati B12 20-14 46.2 -14.7 +14.1 -- 11p
Just beneath the waterline we see a large number of teams showing >50% odds, which shouldn't be the case. But the early days of the Major conference tournaments see this situation: bubble teams get a lot of wins—bumping up their odds—and then the hangover comes the day after when most of them lose the next game, deflating their odds. We're in the inflation stage now, and that fact—plus the bubble shrinking—puts a lot of underwater teams above 50% at the moment. The odds for the teams that didn't make it here are extra-low, as we'll see in a bit.
In any case, Mississippi State has been just below or at the waterline all this week, and beating LSU wasn't enough to put them back in (thanks to Dayton). Now they have to beat Tennessee if they want in, or get grace from the Committee which could happen according to the consensus. Wake Forest doesn't have the consensus on its side, however. A few days ago we projected that they could survive a loss to Pitt but that might not be the case any more.
Michigan State boosted their odds above 50% with the win at Minnesota, but they're still in the First Four Out in the Dance Chance. According to everyone else, it seems, the win sealed their bid. We aren't sure they don't need to beat Purdue, but I guess 19-14 is good enough if you're the Spartans. Providence is also slightly above 50% after upsetting Creighton, but now they have to face Marquette and unlike Michigan State the consensus isn't on the Friars' side.
All of this winning by Major conference bubble teams has pushed Princeton down a few notches, but we established a while ago that if they lose at any time in the Ivy tournament their odds get cut in half basically. Probably more, now that the bubble shrank.
Texas A&M beat Mississippi again and it helped a bit, but losing to Kentucky would put them right back where they were. This is what happened to Cincinnati, who jumped 28% with wins over West Virginia and (mainly) Kansas, but whose loss to Baylor knocked them out of the Last Four In. Again, a few days ago it looked like they'd survive the loss, but luck wasn't on their side (and they were always at a disadvantage trying to be the 10th Big Twelve team).
3/13 3/10 Seed Seed Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds %Chg %Chg 1-seed 3/14 3/13 3/10 54. James Madison SB 31-3 39.1 -4.5 -2.5 -- 12 12 12 55. Grand Canyon WAC 27-4 28.2 -2.8 -9.8 -- 12 12 12 56. Utah P12 19-14 28.0 -16.6 +1.4 -- 57. Oregon P12 21-11 27.2 -0.4 -3.8 -- 58. McNeese St. Slnd 30-3 26.7 -2.3 -1.3 -- 12 13 13 59. Syracuse ACC 20-12 21.5 +1.7 -12.0 -- 60. Villanova BE 18-15 21.3 -9.5 -8.6 -- 61. Kansas St. B12 19-14 20.4 -15.3 0.0 -- 62. N.C. State ACC 20-14 17.6 +17.6 +17.6 -- 63. Samford SC 29-5 13.7 -4.9 -3.5 -- 13 13 13
There are a lot of conference leaders here, and three of them—James Madison, McNeese State, and Samford—have sealed their auto-bid. Grand Canyon starts their WAC bid today. Even getting to their tournament finals and losing shrinks their odds, so they need to win it.
The Pac-12's hopes for a 4th team are here too, so in other words the Pac-12 is looking like a 3-bid conference. Utah's hopes were crushed pretty bad by Colorado, who wanted to make sure the conference even had a 3rd team. Oregon is still alive after beating UCLA 68-66, which impressed the Dance Chance to the tune of losing 0.4%. It appears that even beating Arizona today wouldn't put the Ducks in the field; they need to win the whole shebang.
The ACC has a few teams here. Syracuse lost to NC State in their first AC tourney game and dropped to around the 20% level, leaving them some small hope; meanwhile the team that beat them was still sitting at <0.1—until they upset Duke yesterday, which put them on the map. I didn't even cover the Wolfpack in the Bubble Odds report since they weren't on the radar. But now they are, so here goes: lose to Virginia and their odds drop under 10%. Beat Virginia and lose to UNC: odds remain around 20%. Beat North Carolina, they get the auto-bid. So it's pretty much all or nothing when you come out of nowhere.
Kansas State tried to come out of nowhere a few weeks ago, starting with an upset of Iowa State. Then they beat Texas in the first round of the Big Twelve tournament and went from 20% odds to 35%. But a loss to Iowa State knocked them right back down to 20%.
Villanova almost got sent straight to zero percent against 3-28 DePaul but they won by a point; then they battled Creighton nobly but fell by two points. That's quite a range the Wildcats have, to play both those teams so tight.
3/13 3/10 Seed Seed Seed Rank Team Conf Rec %Odds %Chg %Chg 1-seed 3/14 3/13 3/10 64. Virginia Tech ACC 18-14 12.0 -1.8 -13.8 -- 65. Iowa B10 18-14 10.0 -13.6 -17.1 -- 66. Bradley MVC 22-11 7.2 -2.6 -5.3 -- 67. Butler BE 18-14 6.4 -0.5 -19.5 -- 68. Memphis Amer 22-10 4.9 -13.5 -19.8 -- 69. Richmond A10 23-9 2.7 -8.3 -11.0 -- 70. Appalachian St. SB 27-6 2.3 -3.8 -5.3 -- 71. Mississippi SEC 20-12 1.8 -3.5 -5.3 -- 72. UC Irvine BW 24-8 0.1 -2.7 -5.2 -- 13 13 13 73. UNLV MWC 19-12 <0.1 -10.4 -13.6 --
This is pretty much the graveyard of the bubble. Every team here had their odds decrease, either from losing, or the bubble shrinking, or from teams above winning and "sopping up" the odds from the lower rungs. Virginia Tech's drop occurred on Wednesday with a loss to Florida State, while Iowa had a make or break date with Ohio State yesterday that went sour for the Hawkeyes. Bradley lost a week ago in the Missouri Valley tournament and yet they're still sliding. Same with Butler, who lost on Wednesday to Xavier.
Memphis was upset by Wichita State yesterday which pretty much ended their hopes. And Richmond would have been the Atlantic 10's heir apparent after Dayton's loss, but they lost to St. Joe's, which left the Spiders an extremely long shot for a bid. They're barely ahead of Appalachian State, who still shows a few percentage points of hope as an at-large from the Sun Belt. At 27-6, they deserve a glance at least!
Mississippi's hopes all but evaporated with another loss to Texas A&M. UC Irvine is the last team that shows measurable odds, but if they lose in the Big West tournament that goes to 0.0.
Finally there's UNLV, who had a heck of a run all February trying to become the 7th(!) team from the Mountain West in the tournament. They were 10-1 in that stretch before losing to Nevada, and they took San Diego State into overtime in the conference tournament before losing. That basically ends their hope for an NCAA bid but no one is going to want to face the Rebels in the NIT.
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