We didn’t lose anyone last night, and we are up to 2 Locks and 4 Should be ins. KenPom finished doing all his Conference Tourney Odds on his Substack.
MONDAY RECAP
(3 seed) Santa Clara beat (2) Saint Mary’s in the WCC semifinal. This is by far the best Broncos team in the KenPom Era (some people are now calling this the Play-by-Play Data Era but that’s not as fun) and we’ll see if they can beat might Gonzaga once before the Zags join up with much of the current Mountain West to form the new Pac 12 in 2027.
(3) Hofstra outlasted (7) Towson 68-65 in OT in the Coastal semifinal, struggling through a terrible shooting night through regulation before getting hot in the extra period. Towson’s Tyler Tejada played all 45 minutes and went for 29 points and 7 rebounds, earning KenPom game MVP honors in the losing effort.
COMING UP….
TUESDAY
(3) Hofstra (73% chance of winning per KenPom) vs (4) Monmouth in the Coastal FINAL
(3) Santa Clara (30%) vs (1) Gonzaga in the West Coast FINAL
(1) Stephen F. Austin (72%) vs (4) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in one Southland semifinal
(2) McNeese (76%) vs (3) UT Rio Grande Valley in the other Southland semifinal
(11) SMU (68%) vs (14) Syracuse – ACC first round
ESPN Bubble Watch & KenPom Rank through games of 3/9. ESPN Bracketology updated 3/9/26, 9:15pm ET . Rank in Conf is NOT the team’s place in the standings, but rather the team’s KenPom Rank in the conference – this is why many of our NBK squads are listed as #1 yet are not in the current ESPN Bracketology. Conf Odds are from KenPom’s Substack unless and until the team gets to the conference tournament final, when we instead use their odds of winning the final per KenPom (see * for Santa Clara & Hofstra above).
Kenpom published quite a few of his Conference Tourney Odds on his substack. In total, 26 of 31 are out there. I’ve included those Conf Prob % numbers in the data below. But first some light exposition. NBK-eligible teams are in Bold.
SUNDAYRECAP
(1 seed) High Point smoked (2) Winthrop in the Big South final 91-76. Cam’Ron Fletcher came off the bench to bag 15 points and 17 boards and lead the Panthers back to the Big Dance for the second straight year. Fletcher has be the only player in the country this year with 6 KenPom Game MVPs as a reserve, but I have no way of proving that.
(5) Illinois Chicago fell 84-69 to (6) Northern Iowa in the MVC Arch Madness final, despite getting 28 points from Elijah Crawford.
(1) UNC Wilmington were dumped by (9) Campbell 85-70 in the Coastal quarterfinals as they went 2-18 from three.
(3) Hofstra pounded both (6) William & Mary in the Coastal quarterfinal 92-61 behind Cruz Davis and his 30 points. With (1) UNC Wilmington and (2) Charleston eliminated in the quarters, Hofstra are suddenly the favorite.
(3) Santa Clara toyed with (6) Pacific in the West Coast quarterfinal, surviving and advancing to the tune of 76-68. They’ll take on long-time nemesis (2) Saint Mary’s in the semifinal.
South Florida smoked Charlotte 83-60 to close out the American regular season and win the conference by two games.
Nebraska beat Iowa 84-75 in OT to snag the 2-seed in the Big Ten tourney. The Huskers blew a ten point lead with five minutes left but recovered in the extra period to send the Senior Day crowd home happy.
COMING UP….
MONDAY
(3) Santa Clara (40% chance of winning per KenPom) vs (2) Saint Mary’s in the WCC semifinal
(3) Hofstra (69%) vs (7) Towson in the Coastal semifinal
ESPN Bubble Watch & KenPom Rank through games of 3/8. ESPN Bracketology updated 3/9/26, 9:15pm ET . Rank in Conf is NOT the team’s place in the standings, but rather the team’s KenPom Rank in the conference – this is why many of our NBK squads are listed as #1 yet are not in the current ESPN Bracketology. Conf Odds are from KenPom’s Substack.
Did you ever Fall Back when you were supposed to Spring Forward? Yeah, me neither 🙂
SATURDAY RESULTS
St Thomas were stunned by North Dakota 67-66 in the Summit League semifinal.
SLU completely fell apart, losing by 29 (!) at George Mason. The Billikens’ minor struggles down the stretch have now metastasized into major problems portending total collapse. Robbie Avila had 2 points and 1 rebound and sat most of the second half (foul trouble, garbage time) in the worst game of his college career.
Big stumble for Hawaii as they lost a head-scratcher at home to Long Beach St and first year Gavin Sykes’ 34 points. Coming off a 39 point effort, Sykes is one to watch in the Big West Tournament.
SMU also failed to improve their resume, falling 91-78 at Florida St. The Mustangs’ Boopie Miller went for a career high 32 points but FSU shot 16-34 from long range to prevail. SMU go into the ACC Tournament on a four-game losing skid.
Utah St beat New Mexico 94-90. Utah Valley won a 20T thriller over Utah Tech 104-101. That wraps up our Utah update section.
Boise St with a nice 78-67 road win over Colorado St as both head to their Mountain West tournament openers on Wednesday.
TCU took care of business at home, beating Cincinnati 73-63. That makes 11 conference wins for the Horned Frogs, their most since joining the league in 2013.
Yale pulled away in the second half to beat Princeton handily 78-53. Nick Townshend led the way for the Ivy League champs with 17 points and 7 rebounds and leads the the Ivy KenPom Player of the Year (KPOY) standings going into the Ivy Tournament.
High Point rode a double-double from Senior Terry Anderson to a relatively comfortable 75-71 win over UNC Ashville in the Big South semifinal. They will take on Winthrop in the final on Sunday.
Liberty held off Sam Houston St 79-72 behind CUSA KPOY leader’s near-triple-double: 19 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists.
SUNDAYSLATE
High Point (66% chance of winning per KenPom) vs Winthrop in the Big South FINAL – they split the regular season matchups
Illinois Chicago (40%) vs Northern Iowa in the Arch Madness FINAL – first-ever MVC final for the Flames
Santa Clara (80%) vs Pacific in the West Coast quarterfinal
Hofstra (64%) vs William & Mary in the Colonial quarterfinal
South Florida (90%) host Charlotte to close out the American regular season
Nebraska (71%) host Iowa to close out the Big Ten regular season
ESPN Bubble Watch & KenPom Rank through games of 3/7. ESPN Bracketology updated 3/7/26, 8:45pm ET . Rank in Conf is NOT the team’s place in the standings, but rather the team’s KenPom Rank in the conference – this is why many of our NBK squads are listed as #1 yet are not in the current ESPN Bracketology. Log5 % are from KenPom unless that team is in the final, in which case their final game odds are displayed (see the * for Hight Point and Illinois Chicago above).
As noted Friday night, (1) Belmont was a victim of Arch Madness, upended by (9) Drake in the quarterfinal. Later (3) Illinois St fell to (6) Northern Iowa. And with that our top two MVC hopefuls — (2) Bradley survived in OT but they made the Sweet Sixteen back in 1986 — are out.
UCF was trounced by West Virginia 77-62 and slump into the Big XII tournament losers of three straight, with the shine of conference wins over Kansas, Texas Tech & BYU starting to fade a bit.
SATURDAY
Yale (88% odds of winning per KenPom $) vs Princeton
Hawaii (86%) vs Long Beach St
High Point (83%) vs UNC Ashville
Utah St (74% ) vs New Mexico
Saint Louis (73%) @ George Mason
Utah Valley (66%) @ Utah Tech
TCU (61%) vs Cincinnati
Liberty (56%) vs Sam Houston St
Colorado St (56%) vs Boise St
SMU (56%) @ Florida St
ESPN Bubble Watch & ESPN Bracketology through games of 3/5. KenPom Rank , W-L & Rank in Conf through games of 3/6. Rank in Conf is NOT the team’s place in the standings, but rather the team’s KenPom Rank in the conference – this is why many of our NBK squads are listed as #1 yet are not in the current ESPN Bracketology. I’m choosing to keep the ESPN Bracketology & Log5 %s in the grid even for the eliminated teams at the bottom in gray, to show what might have been.
FRIDAY – Roughly half the conference tournaments are underway, and the other half of the country finishes out the regular season this weekend, and we check back in with the schools looking to make the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament first expanded to 64. Here are the biggest games of the weekend for this pack of puckered peppers:
Utah St hosts New Mexico on Saturday in a game the Aggies can probably afford to lose and the Lobos probably cannot. Everyone in the Mountain West Conference office will be pulling for New Mexico. As it stands now, Joey Brackets has them both IN.
Staying in the Mountain West — official conference sponsor of the NBK — Boise St visits Colorado St as they sit tied for fifth with identical 11-5 conference records. Both are off the bubble at the moment so need all the positioning they can get heading into the MWC Tourney. CSU has won seven straight; Boise St four in a row.
As I sit here and type, #1 Belmont falls in the Arch Madness quarterfinal, upset 100-81 by #9 Drake. The Bruins look unlikely to grab an at-large bid, and March Madness will be denied the nation’s #1 Effective Field Goal % Offense per KenPom. We’ll switch horses and pull for Illinois St to grab the MVC auto-bid.
Red hot TCU hosts white-hot Cincinnati to close out the Big XII schedule. SMU needs to hold serve at home vs Florida St to avoid finishing with a losing record in the ACC.
The top two in Conference USA square off when Liberty – who has already clinched the regular season title – hosts Sam Houston St.
KenPom Rank & ESPN Bubble Watch & ESPN Bracketology through games of 3/5. Rank in Conf is NOT the team’s place in the standings, but rather the team’s KenPom Rank in the conference – this is why many of our NBK squads are listed as #1 yet are not in the current ESPN Bracketology.
The major conferences are in the last week of their regular seasons, while most of the other leagues have already wrapped their regular seasons and are prepping for the conference tournament. As KenPom sends out his Log5 predictions for conference tournament victory odds this week, we’ll update our NBK – Never Been Kissed – standings as often as time allows.
Meanwhile, the biggest movers in the past couple of weeks have been:
Hofstra – Speedy Claxton’s Pride have won 7 of 8 to move into third-place in the CAA with the highest KenPom rating in the league. The CAA tournament should be a good three-way battle among Hofstra, UNC Wilmington, and Charleston.
St Thomas – the Tommies (not kidding) closed hard to grab the #2 seed in the Summit League tournament. They split with conference champ North Dakota State, losing a close one on the road and winning decisively at home more recently.
What in the Sam Houston St is happening in Conference USA? The Bearkats – led by Po’Boigh King – go into the final week of the regular season winning 12 of 13 and a date looms with conference leader Liberty to close it out.
On the downside, Illinois St lost to fellow MVC contenders Illinois Chicago and Bradley down the stretch, and have not won three straight since New Year’s Day. They are in a jumbled group that head to Arch Madness in the second tier below leaders Belmont.
McNeese keeps winning — they finished 19-3 in the Southland — but a few squeakers down the stretch saw them dip in the KenPom ratings even without a loss. The Southland tournament seems almost certain to be a showdown between the Cowboys and Stephen F. Austin.
KenPom Rank & ESPN Bubble Watch as of the evening of 3/2. ESPN Bracketology as of the morning of 3/3. Rank in Conf is NOT the team’s place in the standings, but rather the team’s KenPom Rank in the conference – this is why many of our NBK squads are listed as #1 yet are not in the current ESPN Bracketology.
With SLU 24-1 and inching closer to Lock status — the latest ESPN Bubble Watch says they are already there, but we are more cautious at NBK HQ — let’s take our First Look this year at the programs who have not made the second weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament since it first expanded to 64 schools in 1985; in all these Sweet Sixteens they’ve Never Been Kissed.
Nebraska, Saint Louis & Utah State are all in power positions with decent amounts of cushion. Locks? We’ll see. SMU returns to the ranks of the NBK after a couple of years away. Santa Clara got waxed by Gonzaga last night but remain in contention for an at-large bid.
As usual the Mountain West conference is the NBKest, with five schools making our rankings. New Mexico & TCU embody the spirit of the NBK with their “First Four Out” and “Work to do” statuses. And farther down the list, Liberty lead the CUSA and retain the faintest “Long shot” hope of not even needing the conference auto-bid to get in.
ESPN Bubble Watch is the next layer deeper than ESPN Bracketology., where teams beyond Joey Brackets purview are still jockeying all the way through to Selection Sunday. We’ll see how many of the Long shots can withstand losing their conference tournament and still get an at-large.
With longtime captain Kevin De Bruyne on the back nine of his career, mildly exiled from world beaters Manchester City to Serie A champions Napoli, the All Ginger XI seeks a new arm to place the captain’s band for the first time in nearly a decade. We are running a 4-3-3 and need strong leadership from the backline, and with only one member of the starting unit serving as captain for both club and country, the choice is obvious: Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir is the newest captain of the All Ginger XI. Lead us!
GK – Jordan Pickford – England (#1) & Everton (#1) D – Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir (c) – Iceland (#4) & Bayern Munich (#4) D – Molly Bartrip – Tottenham (#5) D – Stine Ballisager Pedersen – Denmark (#3) & Bayern Munich (#3) D – Tim Ream – USA (#13) & Charlotte (#3) MF – Kim Little – Arsenal (#10) MF – Hal Hershfelt – Washington Spirit (#17) MF – James McClean – Wrexham (#7) F – Sjoeke Nüsken – Germany (#15) & Chelsea (#6) F – Frenkie De Jong – Netherlands (#21) & Barcelona (#21) F – Josh Sargent – USA (#24) & Norwich City (#9)
Manager – Ronald Koeman – Netherlands men Announcer – Mike Watts Podcaster – Sam Mewis
Before the first round we did a WAB-style Draft Preview, and here’s the order our picks were selected:
Cooper Flagg – Duke – Selected #1 by Dallas
Dylan Harper – Rutgers – Selected #2 by San Antonio
Collin Murray-Boyles – South Carolina – Selected #9 by Toronto
Jeremiah Frears – Oklahoma – Selected #7 by New Orleans
Tre Johnson – Texas – Selected #6 by Washington
Derik Queen – Maryland – Selected #13 by New Orleans, who traded up to get him
Ace Bailey – Rutgers – Selected #5 by Utah
We’ll see how these picks pan out.
For Round Two, we are not attempting to do a projection. Instead, as the picks are announced we will generate and publish our favored dot-and-line plots with Game Scores per 40. D1 college players only. See the full list below.
31 – Rasheer Fleming – Saint Joseph’s – selected by Minnesota
32 – Noah Penda – France – selected by Orlando
33 – Sion James – Duke – selected by Charlotte
34 – Ryan Kalkbrenner – Creighton – selected by Charlotte
35 – Johni Broome – Auburn – selected by Philadelphia
36 – Adou Thieru – Arkansas – selected by Brooklyn
37 – Chaz Lanier – Tennessee – selected by Detroit
38 – Kameron Jones – Marquette – selected by San Antonio
39 – Alijah Martin – Florida – selected by Toronto
40 – Micah Peavy – Georgetown – selected by Washington
41 – Koby Brea – Kentucky – selected by Golden State
42 – Maxime Raynaud – Stanford – selected by Sacramento
43 – Jamir Watkins – Florida State – selected by Utah
44 – Brooks Barnhizer – Northwestern – selected by Oklahoma City
45 – Rocco Zikarsky – Australia – selected by Chicago
46 – Amari Williams – Kentucky – selected by Orlando
47 – Bogoljub Marković – Serbia – selected by Milwaukee
48 – Javon Small – West Virginia – selected by Memphis
49 – Tyrese Proctor – Duke – selected by Cleveland
50 – Kobe Sanders – Nevada – selected by New York
51 – Mohamed Diawara – France – selected by LA Clippers 52 – Alex Toohey – Australia – selected by Phoenix
53 – John Tonje – Wisconsin – selected by Utah
54 – Taelon Peter – Liberty – selected by Indiana
55 – Lachlan Olbrich – Australia – selected by LA Lakers
56 – Will Richard – Florida – selected by Memphis
57 – Max Shulga – VCU – selected by Orlando
58 – Saliou Niang – Italy – selected by Cleveland
59 – Jahmai Mashack – Tennessee – selected by Houston
This is our semi-occasional tradition of taking a What’s a Billiken look at the draft prospects for this year’s NBA draft. The 2025 edition is a WAB-friendly one, with NCAA Division I stars expected in most of the top picks, and potentially filling the entire lottery for the first time since…checks ChatGPT…2000. Last year the top two picks — and four of the first six — were not from D1. And as much as we love all these avenues to the pros and salute Zaccharie Richaser and Ron Holland and the like, we don’t have any data for those players thus can’t compare them in the WAB way we prefer – in the context of their college team using Game Score Per 40 Minutes.
We are not looking at every player — and we are not watching any tape — in preparation for these rankings. We have seen some of these players play, so the Eye Test is certain to inform and lightly skew despite our best efforts. These rankings are not intended to be predictive of who goes where. We are listing them in the order of expected career success, in other words who we like best. Behold! The WAB Draft Rankings for 2025. Enjoy the draft.
1 – Cooper Flagg – Duke
2 – Dylan Harper – Rutgers
3 – Collin Murray-Boyles – South Carolina
4 – Jeremiah Frears – Oklahoma
5 – Tre Johnson – Texas
6 – Derik Queen – Maryland
7 – Ace Bailey – Rutgers
<See Dylan Harper chart above> I just learned that Ace’s given name is “Airious”. That is a cool name. Ace is a cooler name. Well done, Ace.
Also considered:
Kon Knueppel & Khaman Maluach – Duke – So difficult to choose who will be better that we ended up dropping both. If we were going to bet on it, we’d say Knueppel has a better rookie year and in five years time Maluach ends up ahead.
VJ Edgecombe – Baylor – Omier was decidedly better, and if VJ is supposed to make his teammates better, by this chart he didn’t
Carter Bryant – Arizona – Not understanding this one at all. Caleb Love and many many other teammates were way way better. Maybe he’s so selfless it’s completely unmeasurable? The anti-VJ? The JV?
Jase Richardson – Michigan State – good season and good player but not enough separation from the Adreian Payne and Gary Harris tier to project success
Kasparas Jakucionis – Illinois – significant jump from him up to Terrence Shannon
Cedric Coward – Washington State – smallest sample size since Michael Porter Jr
Liam McNeeley – Connecticut – miles away from Donovan Clingan, Kemba Walker, and even Cam Spencer
Congrats to the winners, condolences to the non-winners, and apologies for the tempo bias.
For fun, see how many guys who just played in the NBA Finals you can spot in these charts. For even more fun, see how many guys appear on multiple of these charts.
