Profile of the Day: The Final Debate
We are in the witching hour here on Selection Sunday, a day filled with prayer, making deals with the devil and hand-wringing from teams who could have used one more win to pump up their profiles. Throw in the feeling of being hunted as bubble teams watch bid thieves take aim at some mystery team’s spot in the NCAA Tournament, each team not knowing if they are the next to be dealt a lethal blow in sports’ version of the Hunger Games, and we have ourselves one of the greatest days on the sports calendar.
All that dread and consternation will come to an end today, one way or another. We are in the final debates as the bubble picture has winnowed to just a few lucky teams (or unlucky depending on your point of view) who have the chance to hear their name called and go dancing on the biggest stage. Here is a look at what this final debate might hold when the committee meets and finalizes the bracket today.
The Picture
On bracketmatrix.com, there is an aggregate of close to 150 different mock brackets from people all the over the world with different seeding philosophies and opinions. We can use this aggregate to get a sense of who is really on the razor’s edge between in and out of the NCAA Tournament. For example, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern, Wyoming is in 117 out of 131 brackets, good for about 89.3%. This “wisdom of the crowd” approach is the closest we can get to a rigorous statistical analysis of the bubble picture.
Therefore, there are seven teams with a realistic chance of getting selected (between 15% and 60%) in the debate for three spots. The aforementioned Cowboys are the last “safe” team in at roughly 90% odds and is the cutoff point. Anyways, let’s meet the seven contenders:
Currently In:
Notre Dame (59.5%)
Texas A&M (57.2%)
SMU (59.5%)
The only one of these teams still playing is Texas A&M, which complicates their situation. A win in the SEC Championship, their fourth win in four days, would lock up the AQ spot with no worries about an at-large résumé, but a loss, even to Tennessee, will hurt their profile a tiny bit. Would it be enough to knock them out of the field?
Worthy Contenders:
Rutgers (56.5%)
Xavier (52.7%)
Rutgers continues to be an enigma, puzzling bracketologists the world over. Some have the Scarlet Knights headed to Dayton for the First Four, others have them avoiding Dayton altogether as an 11 seed. Some have them out and some have them way out.
Dark Horses:
Oklahoma (29%)
Wake Forest (15.3%)
There are a couple others on the fringes of contention. Notably, CBS’s Jerry Palm still has BYU hanging on to one of the last spots in the field, so maybe the Cougars have more of a chance than the estimated 4.5% the total bracketologists crowd gives them.
These are the blind résumés of the seven teams listed above. Which three would you pick? Absent of my model, I will tell you which ones I would chooses if I were a one man selection committee. First off, I’m eliminating teams G (too low of a NET ranking and too many bad losses) and E (more bad losses than Quad 1 wins).
Between the remaining five, I’ll pick Team A (best NET + KenPom and 10 Quad 1/2 wins), Team C (great SOR and NET plus 4 Quad 1 wins) and Team F (solid but not overwhelming metrics decided by a high SOR). Team D just misses, who has a similar profile to my Team F, but has a Quad 4 loss and an ugly OOC SOS number that is the tiebreaker here.
Here are the teams revealed 🚨 (SPOILER ALERT) 🚨
Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Notre Dame would be my choices, with SMU barely missing out. I definitely think the Sooners chances are being discounted and are a serious contender to be selected. The real trouble is A&M who still has a game to play. In all likelihood, I would take SMU if Texas A&M lost today.
These teams all have their merits. For Oklahoma, it’s the majority of wins coming against Quad 1/Quad 2 and great metrics across the board. Xavier has the high level wins as well and some good metrics. The Aggies have seen their metrics rise quickly in Tampa thanks to adding two Quad 1 wins at the SEC Tournament. SMU is your typical average bubble team in terms of metrics and wins, but sometimes that’s enough to get picked; the terms “bubble” and “average” kind of go hand in hand. Wake Forest has an amazing raw overall record and the computers still like how they’ve played the games. Notre Dame has one of the best SORs among bubble teams and a win over Kentucky in the non-conference holding them up.
As with all bubble teams, there are flaws too. Oklahoma lost too many games and the SOR isn’t special compared to other teams. Xavier ended with a bad loss and has a bad SOR to show for it. Texas A&M has solid metrics, but even a slight bump down with a loss today could spell trouble for them. The Mustangs took two awful losses in a bad non-conference and beat very few teams away from Fort Worth. Wake Forest also ended their season on a bad loss, have just one Quad 1 win to erase some of that and own one of the 15 worst non-conference SOS numbers in the country. Notre Dame is downright middling in every metric other than SOR and a weak ACC did not help them rack up quality wins, mustering just four Quad 1/Quad 2 wins.
And then there’s Rutgers. The team defying all precedent. Six Quad 1 wins, but three Quad 3/4 losses, with a exclusionary NET ranking and predictive metrics. A Team with a NET as low as Rutgers has never been picked for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, but the bracketologists say they have about a coin flip’s odds of getting in today.
The Richmond Factor (plus Texas A&M)
All of this debate might get even more complicated however because Richmond plays for the Atlantic 10 Championship at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. The Spiders are a good team, likely headed to the NIT, but are not an at-large caliber team. If they beat Davidson, who is safely in the field, a spot suddenly disappears at the eleventh hour. Who would be safe now, but suddenly victimized at the hands of the Spiders?
Again, if I were the selection committee judge, jury and executioner, Notre Dame would get left out by a Richmond win. But there are a number of teams who could fall prey to the stolen bid. Oklahoma’s chances are being overlooked and the Sooners have a very good at-large case, but one fewer at-large bid makes that harder to justify. The committee might punish Rutgers (to not validate this type of outlier profile too much) by having them as the very last team in the field… until Richmond shoves them aside. One mid-major might cast aside another mid-major in SMU.
Or maybe it’s Texas A&M? If the Aggies lose the SEC Championship, the biggest question is are they still an at-large team? If they are, and if they are put as the last team in, Richmond could very easily snatch Texas A&M’s joy from a memorable SEC Tournament run. And if Texas A&M wins, will we ever know what the Aggies’ at-large fate would have been?
A lot of questions to ask and see how they are answered over the course of these final six hours. My gut says the committee will give the final three spots to Notre Dame, Rutgers (at risk of the stolen bid) and Texas A&M, with SMU praying for no stolen bid and an Aggie blowout loss to make their case easier. Let’s watch what unfolds on a memorable Selection Sunday