NBK Update: Saturday 3/7

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.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and ESPN Bracketology and ESPN Bubble Watch and Ken’s Substack