Grouping conferences by NCAA bid potential

[Plebe]

Guaranteed multi-bid conferences:

• Pac-12. 6 bids, barring a deep P12T run by a bottom-half team like Colorado or USC.
• Big Ten. Likely 8 bids. But if Purdue loses again to Michigan State, they could be in some danger.
• SEC. 7 or 8 bids. Alabama is on the bubble.
• ACC. Likely 5 or 6 bids. Georgia Tech is on the bubble. Can't discount the possibility of a "bid steal" by a lower seed.
• Big 12. Anywhere from 2 to 6 bids. Texas is likely in but not a lock. Iowa State and Oklahoma State are hovering near the cut line. West Virginia probably needs a strong run in the Big 12 tournament to have a chance.
• Big East. 2 to 4 bids. Marquette's win over DePaul puts them in safe territory. Creighton is likely in but not a lock. St. John's has a slim chance at a bid. "Bid steal" potential is there as well.
• Missouri Valley. 2 to 5 bids. Missouri State and Drake are safe. Bradley is very near the cut line. Northern Iowa and Illinois State still have a shot as well.

Potential multi-bid conferences (subject to committee decision):

• AAC. UCF is near the cut line. If Cincinnati beats UCF to get to the finals, they'll be in the mix as well.
• Conference USA. No locks here, but no fewer than 5 teams -- Old Dominion, WKU, Rice, MTSU, Charlotte -- have a chance at an at-large bid. ODU is most likely in but not yet a lock.
• Colonial. James Madison is very near the cut line. A loss in the conference tournament would force a committee decision.
• Ohio Valley. Belmont or UT Martin may get a look, but chances are slim.

Conditional one-bid conferences (barring a "bid steal" scenario):

• WCC. Gonzaga is a lock. Any other team that wins the WCC tourney would be stealing a bid.
• Summit League. South Dakota is a lock. Same situation as with Gonzaga in the WCC.
• Mid-American. Central Michigan is close to a lock, but they need to stop their current two-game losing skid. Ohio fell off the bubble with a recent 3-game skid. Ball State might get a brief look, but highly improbable.
• Atlantic Sun. FGCU is a lock. Liberty and North Alabama have bid-stealing potential.
• Ivy League. Princeton is a lock. Yale, Penn and Columbia will be trying to steal a bid.

Guaranteed one-bid conferences (regular-season leader/champion in parentheses):

• America East (Stony Brook 14-2 in conference, 25-3 overall)
• Atlantic 10 (Dayton 15-1, 22-8)
• Big Sky (Montana State 17-1, 19-6)
• Big South (Campbell 16-2, 19-6)
• Big West (UC Davis 11-3, 15-11)
• Horizon (IUPUI 15-3, 20-8)
• Metro Atlantic (co-leaders Marist and Rider have identical records of 16-2 and 23-4)
• MEAC (Bethune Cookman 14-1, 20-5)
• Mountain West (Fresno State 16-2, 22-6)
• Northeast (Robert Morris 16-1, 20-7)
• Patriot (Bucknell 15-2, 22-6)
• SoCon (UNCG, Samford and Chattanooga tied at 10-4)
• Southland (SFA and TAMCC tied at 15-3)
• Sun Belt (Coastal Carolina 15-2, 23-3; Troy is a half-game behind at 14-2, 21-4)
• SWAC (Jackson State 15-1, 17-9)
• WAC (UMKC 11-3, 16-10)

 

[sivad40]

Boston College has the potential to steal a bid if they can win a game or two in ACC tournament.

 

[DefenseBB]

Ok, so the math has not changed, 16 conferences with 1 bid teams. 64-16=48 teams. In essence, the top 48 teams of RPI, Massey, polls and the dreaded P5 bias...

What I find so confusing is the Crème and Plebe brackets/teams seem to follow Massey Ratings to a T, but yet RPI and Q1 wins keep getting air time...

 

[Plebe]

Boston College has the potential to steal a bid if they can win a game or two in ACC tournament.

IMO needing at least two wins. Their resume isn't that great overall, with those losses to Holy Cross and Providence. Beating Miami or Clemson won't help. They'll need to take down Duke in the QF to have a chance.

 

[nwhoopfan]

It's interesting that as the Pac 12 has risen to among the best conferences in recent years, their number of bids hasn't really increased. For whatever reason they don't seem to have bubble teams. As soft as the bubble is, I'm not sure why USC wouldn't be in consideration. There are certainly teams from the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big 10 that may make it that I would like USC's chances of beating.

edit--I know their OOC wasn't very strong but their wins against UCLA and Oregon St. have to be better than many of the bubble teams have managed.

 

[Plebe]

It's interesting that as the Pac 12 has risen to among the best conferences in recent years, their number of bids hasn't really increased. For whatever reason they don't seem to have bubble teams. As soft as the bubble is, I'm not sure why USC wouldn't be in consideration. There are certainly teams from the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big 10 that may make it that I would like USC's chances of beating.

edit--I know their OOC wasn't very strong but their wins against UCLA and Oregon St. have to be better than many of the bubble teams have managed.

Yes those are two good wins but they don’t offset all the bad in their body of work. Their RPI is in the 80s right now. They’ll need a couple huge wins in the P12T to get in.

Colorado might have a slightly better chance but for sure would have to beat UCLA. But hard to look past a conference record of 5-13

 

[Plebe]

It's interesting that as the Pac 12 has risen to among the best conferences in recent years, their number of bids hasn't really increased. For whatever reason they don't seem to have bubble teams. As soft as the bubble is, I'm not sure why USC wouldn't be in consideration. There are certainly teams from the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big 10 that may make it that I would like USC's chances of beating.

edit--I know their OOC wasn't very strong but their wins against UCLA and Oregon St. have to be better than many of the bubble teams have managed.

Also, I remember that Cal was a surprise inclusion in the NCAAs a few years ago.

In the past couple years there have been bubble teams but they all faltered down the stretch. Utah fell apart last year due to injuries. Arizona and USC were bubble teams but lost really key games when it mattered. Arizona was also partly self-sabotaged by poor scheduling.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Colorado might have a slightly better chance but for sure would have to beat UCLA. But hard to look past a conference record of 5-13

This underscores how stupid RPI is. USC is clearly a better team than Colorado.

 

[Plebe]

This underscores how stupid RPI is. USC is clearly a better team than Colorado.

Based on recent form, probably so. But USC is carrying a lot of baggage, most notably a horrible loss to UCSB. Also, Colorado played a much more difficult conference schedule, facing Stanford and the Oregon schools twice each. USC played each of them only once.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Based on recent form, probably so. But USC is carrying a lot of baggage, most notably a horrible loss to UCSB. Also, Colorado played a much more difficult conference schedule, facing Stanford and the Oregon schools twice each. USC played each of them only once.

That darned unbalanced schedule. Well I'm not gonna let Colorado off the hook for finishing behind Utah (against the same schedule obviously as they are travel partners) and tied with Washington. No way Colorado is a Tourney team given neither of those other 2 are.

 

[Plebe]

That darned unbalanced schedule. Well I'm not gonna let Colorado off the hook for finishing behind Utah (against the same schedule obviously as they are travel partners) and tied with Washington. No way Colorado is a Tourney team given neither of those other 2 are.

Well, you get your wish because the reality is that none of them are tournament teams, USC included.

 

[DefenseBB]

Well, you get your wish because the reality is that none of them are tournament teams, USC included.

​

 

[UcMiami]

The Pac12 18 game conference schedule I think hurts the middle of the pack teams when the top end of the conference is so strong and the bottom isn't weak enough. The B1G has 18 conference games as well, but the bottome four teams have 11 conference wins while the Pac had 17 wins. And with two extra teams in the B1G they go 8 deep at .500 instead of 6 deep. Still a record of 9-9, 16-13 for MichSt with no signature wins looks pretty weak for an NCAA bid.