With a flurry of action in college basketball on Friday, the biggest mover in our NBK rankings was a team that watched from the sofa: the SLU Billikens are in (the speculative tournament), baby! The Billikens move to the Last Team In in Joey Brackets’ overnight update and hang there by a pinky finger. Who can the Bills thank for their good fortune? Well….

Utah St., first and foremost. The Aggies knocked Colorado St. out of the Mountain West semis and Lunardi’s bracket with a convincing 62-50 win in the final game of the night, solidifying their own position and torpedoing CSU’s. The Billikens thank you, USU.

And SMU. The Mustangs had a statement game too on Friday, unfortunately for their fans their statement read simply: “We absolutely want no part of the NCAA Tournament, and we’ll take no further questions at this time. Thank you and good night.” The Stangs stank vs Cincy, keeping things close for the first half before leaving their energy in the locker room. The Bearcats ran off a 20-1 from late in the first to the first five minutes of the second, and from there SMUs fate was sealed. SLU thanks SMU too.

Take a bow Toledo. Your #14 KenPom offense put up 80 against Ohio, but your #162 defense gave up 87 and you clear a path for Buffalo. The hot wings and the billie heads thank you too.

Saturday

So who’s rooting for who? Primarily it’s the shaky quad SLU, CSU, Boise St. and Drake rooting hard for San Diego St. (59% per KenPom $) over Utah St., for Houston (77%) over Memphis (lurking as a Next Four Out), for Creighton (76%) over Georgetown, and for Colorado (77%) over Oregon St. Odds are that only three of those four actually happen.

Of those single-bid conference schools with skin still in the game, Eastern Washington (78%) and Abilene Christian (77%) join aforementioned Creighton and Colorado as strong favorites today, while Buffalo, UCSB, and North Texas are only slight favorites to go dancing. St. Bonaventure and Colgate fans will have to wait until Sunday for their fate to be decided.

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.