Midday on Thursday of Championship Week brings a boatload of news for the NBK rankings. This edition is where the NBK selection committee — myself and my dog Bruno — frees itself from the bounds of ranking its member teams by KenPom rank. Now we want to know two things: how solidly are you IN the field already, or how much upward mobility do you have.
NC State and Northwestern answered these questions loudly with “Not” and “None”, exiting their conference tournaments early Wednesday and snuffing out their hopes of a Sweet Sixteen debut in 2021.
North Texas and Colgate both won their conference tournament openers on Wednesday, Colgate in resounding fashion. The ‘gater Raiders achieved some internet buzz on when basketball twitter noticed their bizarre schedule is breaking the NET.
Among non-NBK teams to affect our rankings on Wednesday, Duke shook the snow globe most violently. The Blue Devils followed up a preliminary round stomping of Boston College on Tuesday with an impressive victory over Louisville, in one swoop moving themselves into Joey Brackets’ consideration at Next Four Out whilst pushing Louisville back out to Last Four In range. And if that weren’t enough, on Thursday morning Duke announced a positive COVID-19 test within the program leads to the immediate cancellation of the rest of their games and season. Louisville, having just played them, is now on the hook to quarantine and come up with enough negative COVID-19 tests to be included in the field, else they will go the way of the Blue Devils. Oh my!
Xavier & Syracuse — non-NBK teams– swapped places on Wednesday, hopping over NBK #6 Utah St. in the process. Xavier lost to Butler to move from Last Team In to First Four Out, and Syracuse trounced NC State to swipe the Muskateers bid on Lunardi’s bracket. No respect for USU, but we at the NBK remain bullish.
At press time Toledo is tied with Ball St at the end of regulation in their MAC quarterfinal tilt, so their status is in major jeopardy. Also in action and of interest Thursday are Creighton, Colorado, Rutgers, Utah St., Colorado St., Boise St., UCSB, Buffalo, and Eastern Washington. Survive and advance, boys, and live to pucker another day.
Notes
Data courtesy Kenpom.com , NCAA.org, and ESPN Bracketology. For “Conf Tourney Odds” Ken Pomeroy’s conference tourney forecasts are used until the team advances to the conference tournament final, in which case the heavy-bordered cell contains the KenPom odds ($) of winning the final itself.