Bubble Watch (Feb. 17)

Tuesday's Results
South Florida 65, Cincinnati 57
Kentucky 81, Mississippi State 75
Northeastern 65, North Carolina-Wilmington 56
San Diego State 68, TCU 51
Baylor 88, Texas Tech 70
Virginia Tech 87, Wake Forest 83
William & Mary 63, George Mason 60

Wednesday's Slate
Duquesne at #41 Charlotte, 6 p.m.
#58 Memphis at Tulane, 6 p.m.
Notre Dame at #30 Louisville, 6 p.m. (ESPN2)
#57 Seton Hall at St. John's, 6:30 p.m. (ESPN Full Court)
#38 Oklahoma State at Iowa State, 7 p.m. (ESPN Full Court)
#36 UAB at Southern Miss, 7 p.m.
Evansville at #49 Wichita State, 7:05 p.m.
Penn State at #75 Northwestern, 7:30 p.m. (BTN)
#42 Maryland at NC State, 8 p.m.
#70 South Carolina at Arkansas, 8 p.m. (ESPN Full Court)
#35 UNLV at Utah, 9 p.m. (The MTN)

The Skinny: Big road wins for a pair of Colonial at-large hopefuls, Northeastern and William & Mary. Bill & Mary comes back from an 11-point halftime deficit @ George Mason, which had won its last 18 conference home games. The CAA is looking more and more like it will be a 2-bid league, especially if Old Dominion fails to win the conference tournament. Virginia Tech's win over Wake Forest should make the Gobblers a lock for the tournament, barring a meltdown down the stretch.

Tonight, reeling UAB needs to right the ship. ... and quickly. Don't be surprised if the Blazers' at-large hopes go down in flames @ Southern Miss. Northwestern can't get caught looking ahead to their game in Madison on Sunday. Put simply, if the Wildcats beat Penn State tonight and then somehow pull off a shocker vs. the Badgers, they'll be in position for a NCAA bid heading into the final three weeks of the season, something that would have sounded ludicrous if suggested after Kevin Coble went down with his injury.

Put simply, if the Wildcats beat Penn State tonight and then somehow pull off a shocker vs. the Badgers, they'll be in position for a NCAA bid heading into the final three weeks of the season

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Never one to give up the ship - If the Gophers should pull out a shocker against Wisc tomorrow, beat Indiana, and witness the second coming of Christ with a win over Purdue next week, will they be back in the conversation, not in line for a bid mind you, but in the conversation at least?

Dreaming the impossible dream.

I will say this. If the Gophers win both games this week (not holding my breath), they will be back on my at-large board. That would at least give the Purdue game some relevance for the Gophers, to get back over. 500 with three games to play.

SelectionSunday said:

I will say this. If the Gophers win both games this week (not holding my breath), they will be back on my at-large board. That would at least give the Purdue game some relevance for the Gophers, to get back over. 500 with three games to play.

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Given Bucky and Purdue's high RPI's if we win the next 3 I have to think our RPI will be back in the 50's no? Either way we'd still have to win out and I don't see 2 road wins in a row happening.

I will say this. If the Gophers win both games this week (not holding my breath), they will be back on my at-large board. That would at least give the Purdue game some relevance for the Gophers, to get back over. 500 with three games to play.

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An ever slim chance is good enough to keep me hoping until after the Indiana game. I'm already looking past Wisconsin.

My guess is three straight wins would get the Gophers RPI back in the 60's, but not quite the 50's Beating Indiana at home would do little, if anything, for us.

60's not a good RPI for a bubble team, but at least it would be in a position where another road win or two (preferably @ Illinois) maybe could propel the Gophers into the 50's heading to Indy.

The most optimistic scenario I can envision for the Gophers (my eyes tell me this is a pipedream) is winning out at home & winning at Michigan to get to 10-8, then getting to the semis of the BTT. That scenario would leave us with five RPI top-50 wins (maybe even top-25) heading into Selection Sunday. ... Butler (neutral), Ohio State (home), Wisconsin (home), Purdue (home) and TBD (neutral) in BTT quarterfinals. And that's just to get the Gophers back into the conversation.

Now the odds of all that happening are slim and none, and I'm pretty sure slim has left the building.

SelectionSunday said:

My guess is three straight wins would get the Gophers RPI back in the 60's, but not quite the 50's Beating Indiana at home would do little, if anything, for us.

60's not a good RPI for a bubble team, but at least it would be in a position where another road win or two (preferably @ Illinois) maybe could propel the Gophers into the 50's heading to Indy.

The most optimistic scenario I can envision for the Gophers (my eyes tell me this is a pipedream) is winning out at home & winning at Michigan to get to 10-8, then getting to the semis of the BTT. That scenario would leave us with five RPI top-50 wins (maybe even top-25) heading into Selection Sunday. ... Butler (neutral), Ohio State (home), Wisconsin (home), Purdue (home) and TBD (neutral) in BTT quarterfinals. And that's just to get the Gophers back into the conversation.

Now the odds of all that happening are slim and none, and I'm pretty sure slim has left the building.

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I agree. The options are:

A. win out.

B. Lose 1 and win two in BTT.

C. Lose two and win 3 in BTT and hope Selection Committee feels lazy.

As long as no one's turned out the light at the end of tunnel anything can happen.

". ... and hope the Selection Committee feels lazy."

If there's one thing I would like to have divulged by the Selection Committee, that would be the one. In cases where a major-conference bubble team makes it to the conference tournament finals and earns the automatic bid at the very last minute (i.e. Mississipi State last year), does the committee really have a Scenario A and Scenario B in place, depending on whether the bubble team wins? Or in reality, did they have Mississippi State in either way to keep things simple?

My hunch is they have both scenarios covered, but I think in those cases it would be cool to know which team got bumped, #66 so to speak. But of course, they're never going to tell us which team it was.

Yay Hokies

SelectionSunday said:

". ... and hope the Selection Committee feels lazy."

If there's one thing I would like to have divulged by the Selection Committee, that would be the one. In cases where a major-conference bubble team makes it to the conference tournament finals and earns the automatic bid at the very last minute (i.e. Mississipi State last year), does the committee really have a Scenario A and Scenario B in place, depending on whether the bubble team wins? Or in reality, did they have Mississippi State in either way to keep things simple?

My hunch is they have both scenarios covered, but I think in those cases it would be cool to know which team got bumped, #66 so to speak. But of course, they're never going to tell us which team it was.

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I think it depends. If the team trying to pull the upset doesn't have a remotely viable at-large resume (like Georgia a couple years ago), they have no choice but to keep two brackets open. I dont' recall Mississippi State's resume last year. But if the Gophers end up 18-12, 9-9 and then win 3 games to be sitting 21-12, 12-9 on Selection Sunday you can make a viable case for them versus other bubble teams.

Therefore, I think there would be a strong temptation to just put Minnesota in (or Northwestern if they're in a similar spot) rather then have to wait. This is even more true for the Big 10 as it is the very last game of the day. I don't think they mind waiting for the early SEC and ACC games to finish, but I don't think they like to take the Big 10 final into consideration because it ends about an hour before the show. There have been multiple times where it seemed that a team's seed should have moved up or down given the result of the Big 10 Championship game and it didn't.