One week to go until Selection Sunday, when the Never Been Kissed gang gets the signal to either pucker up or take a cold shower and come back strong next year.
With the promise and glory of conference tournaments keeping hope alive, Indiana St became the first NBKer to be officially eliminated from the NCAA Tournament. The Sycamores were smoked 81-52 in the first round of Arch Madness by Porter Moser’s Loyola Ill team. Hard to fathom how ISU finished tied for third in the conference, as Illinois St — who beat Wichita St to go to Sunday’s tourney final — and Loyola both look substantially stronger.
Harvard has a horseshoe lodged firmly in its hind-quarters, as Yale fell to Dartmouth on a buzzer-beater Saturday night, dropping the Eli or Bulldogs or VPs of Finance into a tie atop the tourney-less Ivy. Harvard meets Yale in a one-game playoff Saturday at the Palestra in Philadelphia to decide who dances. (Since we are talking Harvard-Yale, the dancing is sure to be somewhat off-tempo featuring lots of overbites)
Murray St may be racing for the NIT after a heart-breaking loss to Belmont in the title game of the Ohio Valley Conference. Speculation is that the Racers lack of quality wins — #63 and rising Illinois St is their only Top 100 win — negates the 25-game win streak and keeps them from the Big Dance.
Personally, I would pay to see Cameron Payne and TJ Sapp and Jarvis Williams and all the Racers advance ahead of the likes of Illinois, Purdue, or UCLA. This is a chance for the committee to consider the Fun Factor. Though the hashtag #RacersDerserveABid is not actually true – can’t say they deserve it – we at WAB fully endorse its use. Racer fans’ sphincters will be puckered all this week; we hope to see their lips puckered the week following.
Georgia St took care of business on Saturday, winning the Sun Belt outright and with authority over number two Georgia Southern 72-55. They take the number 1 seed to the conference tournament in New Orleans. More importantly to their Sweet Sixteen chances, the Panthers moved up a line on the Bracketology list to a 13-seed. As we have noted many times, the 4s and 5s always look wobbly come tournament time and 13 is a terrific place for an underdog to emerge from the first weekend.
The Grizzlies of Montana were like Michael Corleone during a baptism on Saturday. They went into cross-state rivals Montana St and crushed them 70-55, put a sack over the head of Sac St who lost at the Walkup Skydome to drop from the top, and somehow emerged from this byzantine tie-breaker scenario not only as co-conference champs but as Conference Tournament hosts.
Old Dominion has now ripped off six straight and the KenPom.com computer has taken notice, ranking the Monarchs a frisky #57. Joey Brackets’ radar has extended to Norfolk, as ODU has inched up to the precarious Next Four Out list. At WAB, we wait with baited breath to see KenPom’s log5 simulation of the CUSA tournament. Champion Louisiana Tech won the league by two games but at #72 is rated lower than ODU. And the Monarch’s defense — #47 in AdjD — stands as the only unit in the conference in the Top 50 nationally.
At the other end of the CUSA stands disgraced NBKer Southern Miss. CUSA is an invitation-only-style tournament, and the Golden Eagles fell all the way from number 5 in the preseason NBK rankings to finishing three-games from qualifying for the conference tournament. Really rough start for Doc Sadler in Hattiesburg.
Like Georgia St, SMU has a winner-take-all showdown for the conference title and number 1 seed on Sunday, in Dallas vs the Tulsa Hurricanes. KenPom likes the Mustangs (predicting 82% chance of a win and forecasting a score of 67-58), and we at WAB concur. The Haithers gonna Haith, Haith, Haith, Haith, Haith and the Hurricanes are gonna Cane, Cane, Cane, Cane, Cane but we suspect Larry Brown and co will shake it off.
Steve Masiello and the Manhattan Jaspers are moving right along in the MAAC tournament, making the semi-finals. They are favored to beat St Peter’s today and potentially take on top-seeded Iona in the final.
Full NBK update below, grid-style and ordered by Current Kissability rating.
| NBK Rank (Current) | Team | KenPom Rank | Conference Finish | Log5 Conf Tourney Win % | ESPN | Road to the Sweet Sixteen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SMU | 24 | T-1st (AAC) | 6-seed | Tulsa 11 Oklahoma St 3 Notre Dame |
|
| 2 | Georgia St | 71 | 1st (Sun Belt) | 13-seed | Ga Southern - CHECK 4 Northern Iowa 5 Arkansas |
|
| 3 | Harvard | 79 | T-1st (Ivy) | 47%* | Penn - CHECK Yale 4 Oklahoma 5 Arkansas |
|
| 4 | Montana | 146 | T-1st (Big Sky) | 15-seed** | 2 Gonzaga 7 Ohio St |
|
| 5 | Murray State | 77 | 1st (OVC) | 50.9% | Next Four Out | Eight Days of Waiting ? ? |
| 6 | Old Dominion | 57 | T-2th (CUSA) | 13-seed** | Louisiana Tech 4 Louisville 5 West Virginia |
|
| 7 | Manhattan | 168 | T-3rd (MAAC) | 12.3% | Quinnipiac - CHECK Marist - CHECK St Peter's Iona ? ? |
|
| 8 | Creighton | 91 | T-9th (BE) | |||
| 9 | Nebraska | 128 | 12th (B1G) | |||
| 10 | Colorado | 97 | T-8th (P12) | |||
| 11 | Indiana St | 155 | 3rd (MVC) | 0.9% | OUT | get 'em next year |
| 12 | New Mexico | 134 | 8th (MWC) | |||
| 13 | Fordham | 216 | T-12th (A10) | |||
| 14 | Saint Louis | 293 | 14th (A10) | |||
| 15 | Southern Miss | 313 | 13th (CUSA) | OUT | get 'em next year | |
| 16 | Northwestern | 111 | 11th (B1G) |
Footnotes:
* The Ivy League is the last remaining conference to eschew a conference tournament, so I cheated a bit here and used KenPom’s odds of Harvard beating Yale in their one-game playoff next Saturday
** Bracketology currently shows another team from these conferences getting the auto-bid, but the team shown is rated lower than their NBK-certified rival so I swapped the NBKer in
Resources:
- Ratings, Log5 and most other data from the incredible KenPom.com. This is his world and the WAB and NBK just live in it.
- ESPN Bracketology updated frequently by the incomparable Joey Brackets aka Joe Lunardi
- CBS Sports has a great conference tournament bracket site here