A full slate of NBK-affecting games on Thursday shook things up substantially, sending shockwaves to the standings of those schools who have never made the Sweet Sixteeen since the NCAA expanded the field to sixty-four back in 1985. Let’s start our look at Thursday with those who moved up in the rankings or solidified their positions.
Creighton crushed Butler 87-56 in the Big East quarterfinal, and with Villanova out of the picture they are the favorites to take the crown and improve their seeding. The Bluejays moved into the Top 10 in KenPom with their win. Tough test on Friday as they get surging UConn (#17 KenPom) in the semifinals.
Utah St. pantsed UNLV 74-53 in the pivotal Mountain West quarters, holding serve such that Joey Brackets moved them from the OUT to the IN list with a tenuous grip on the dubious Last Team In. Their game on Friday with Colorado St. is of most consequence to the NBK, KenPom has USU as a slight favorite (57%).
Rutgers beat Indiana 61-50 and solidified their Bracketology position, moving up one line from a 10-seed to a 9-seed. For NBK purposes this is a bit of a demotion — we view the 7-10 seed soup as all one thing, and the #1 seeds look impervious to early round defeat this year — so Rutgers stays put at #4 in the NBK rankings.
On the negative side of the ledger, Boise St. blew their chances by bowing to Nevada 89-82 in the Mountain West quarters. They essentially swapped Bracketology places with Utah St., moving from IN to OUT, and in the NBK dropped all the way down behind SLU to #19 — you do not want to be behind SLU at this moment in time. It’s looking very NIT for the blue turfers.
Toledo needed overtime to get past Ball St. but are a reasonably solid favorite today (61% per KenPom) so will stay put. All other NBKers advanced. Here are all the Friday odds of winning for NBK teams, per KenPom ($):
| NBK Rank | School | KenPom Odds on Friday |
| 15 | Abilene Christian | 91% |
| 12 | UCSB | 84% |
| 16 | SMU | 71% |
| 17 | Eastern Washington | 69% |
| 11 | Buffalo | 63% |
| 10 | Toledo | 61% |
| 6 | Utah St. | 57% |
| 1 | Creighton | 52% |
| 13 | North Texas | 51% |
| 2 | Colorado | 49% |
| 9 | Colorado St. | 43% |
| 4 | Rutgers | 25% |
In our last update we somehow missed the fact that Colgate is already in the Patriot League final on Sunday. We swear on a stack of fluoride this was only an oversight and we are not an anti-dentite organization.
Notes
Data courtesy Kenpom.com , NCAA.org, and ESPN Bracketology. For “Conf Tourney Odds” Ken Pomeroy’s conference tourney forecasts are used until the team advances to the conference tournament final, in which case the heavy-bordered cell contains the KenPom odds ($) of winning the final itself.