Checking out the movers and puckerers in the Never Been Kissed, those schools that have not made the Sweet Sixteen since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Interesting happenings this year in the Southern Conference (SC in the grid below), where East Tennessee St grabbed the lead and jumped +10 in KenPom rankings. Joey Brackets has the Southern as a two-bid conference at the moment, with Furman projected as an at-large to join ETSU. Sandwiched in between is UNC Greensboro. Wofford losing Fletcher McGee and taking a step back has created an interesting void in the Southern.

Akron broke a two-game losing skid by beating Eastern Michigan. In the KenPom math-don’t-care world, they continued to slide in the rankings while squeaking out the win. The Zips thumped Bowling Green in their next matchup, so maybe they get things rolling again.

Winthrop barely beat lowly Longwood then lost to conference contender Radford to accelerate their slide. Radford is now one game back in the conference standings.

How about Colgate? I know nothing about the toothpaste stalwarts, so that is not a rhetorical question. So seriously: how about Colgate?

February is upon us, with March not far off. So it’s time for our semi-occasional regular look at the schools that have never made the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, never made it to the Sweet Sixteen, never been kissed (NBK). We started the NBK several years ago to track Saint Louis University’s progress or lack of same toward making their first ever Sweet Sixteen. With tonight’s loss to Duquesne, the Billies have a telescopic view of the bubble and are therefore not currently in contention. The dry spell seems destined to continue.

We’ll start ranking this year’s NBK simply by KenPom rank in Adjusted Efficiency. Colorado and Creighton sit in the Top 20 in KenPom but only project to 6-seeds per Joey Brackets, putting their odds firmly against making the second weekend. Of the automatic qualifiers, Yale leads the pack in the Ivy. Frankly, our methodology needs to be looked at if we are including a school like SMU – 6th in the American and seemingly going nowhere. We’ll need to tighten things up as Selection Sunday approaches. Liberty has the best current projected seed among the AQs at 11, and Vermont has been an NBK stalwart for years. Go Catamounts. As for Liberty…give me the other.

The Bills look to bust out of a five-way tie for third place (6-3) by beating up on Duquesne, one of the teams in said tie. The Dukes beat SLU handily in the first game of the conference season.

Joey Brackets has the A-10 as a three-bid league this year (Dayton, URI, VCU) so holding serve here is critical.

SLU fans may remember Frankie Hughes, who spent his freshman season at Mizzou before transferring to Duquesne. Hughes is described as Duquesne’s leading three-point shooter “by volume”, which is to say he shoots many and makes not so many. Alas, Frankie is out this season with a knee injury.

I spent fifteen minutes on the internet trying to figure out if Michael and Frankie are related. They do not appear to be, though I could not find anywhere that explicitly stated “no relation”. They love to say “no relation” wherever possible, so I thought. Frankie went to Mizzou for a season but is from Cleveland. Michael went to Akron for a season but is from Kansas City. He chose to follow the coach from Akron to Duquesne.

Can it really be called a “preview” if it’s posted at halftime? Age old question that we answer tonight.

La Salle not having a great year, and Lionel Simmons is not walking through that door. Top rated slugger Jack Clark has not played this year

SLU vs Fordham at Chaifetz Arena 1/26/2020. Fordham is in a rebuild, with no one on the current roster comparable to Eric Paschall — now with the Golden State Warriors — or other Rams of recent vintage.

Check this space periodically for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Division I head coaching jobs that change hands. We begin our list with the Rick Pitino firing before the 2017-18 games even got started, and will update periodically.

See Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com for commentary on the changes and speculation of who might go where.  Jeff Goodman of ESPN is also all over this stuff.

Spoiler alert — the Bonnies beat UCLA in the First Four tonight. So all our NBK hopefuls are alive going into Thursday’s general session.

Check out The Power Rank for their terrific interactive visualization tool of every team’s path to glory.

The Houston Cougars have the best chance of making the second weekend, followed by the TCU Horned Frogs. But the path to the Sweet Sixteen is a rocky one for a 6-seed, unless and until the 14 knocks out the 3.  Both Houston and TCU are rooting for fellow NBKers Montana and Bucknell, respectively.

Of the longer-shots, Buffalo has the best of the worst odds, as they are given a 7.1% chance of plowing through two sets of Wildcats.

Today is the day we have all been waiting for: Daylight Saving Time. (I learned from losing HQ the other night that “Savings” is incorrect and officially it is “Saving”).

So maybe we have not all been waiting for DST, but today is also Selection Sunday! Today we find out what the committee thinks is the best 68, and what sort of gerrymandered logic they invented on the spot to assemble this year’s collection.

In this space, we have monitored closely the trials and tribulations of those programs who play Division I men’s college basketball and have never made the big tournament’s second weekend, never been to the Sweet Sixteen, and therefore Never Been Kissed (NBK). We selected 21 teams to follow this year, primarily based on overall KenPom ranking — for multi-bid conferences — and position in their conference for one-bid leagues.

Several favorites bit the dust these past few days. Lafayette tried to take this bull by the reins, but just got redder with bloodstains, losing the Sun Belt final to UT-Arlington.   Former Mizzou forward Jakeenan Gant will not be going to the tournament this year with the Ragin’ Cajuns.  We are ruling them OUT.

Boise St lingered on the edges of the bubble for the past several weeks, but a bad loss to Utah St in the opener of the C-USA tournament sealed the fate of the Blue Turfers.  Broncos are OUT.

Vermont lost in the championship of the America East to Maryland-Baltimore County on a late three by Jarius Lyles.  UMBC goes dancing while the Catamounts wonder what might have been.  OUT.

Middle Tennessee complicated matters for themselves and other bubble teams by losing in their C-USA tourney opener to a terrible Southern Miss team, on the heels of a final regular season loss to Marshall the week prior.  All the good tidings of a 10-game win streak have burst into flames, and the team that all the prognosticators were frothing over as a potential upset pick is now likely not dancing at all.  Blue Raiders are going to be OUT.

St Bonaventure is playing with fire, bowing to Davidson in the Atlantic 10 semifinals.  Their loss was probably just late enough (Saturday eve) and to just good enough of a team (Davidson is #43 KenPom) that their bubble status will remain precarious but secure.  We are calling the Bonnies IN.

The Big Ten tournament was seemingly a couple of months ago, and this Champ Week cannot have been a pleasant one for Nebraska.  The Huskers ended their season as a First Four Out, and with other teams improving their stock, Herbie’s continues to erode.  BracketMatrix still tracks them as the very last of the Next Four Out, but Lunardi has written them off completely.  We concur.  OUT.

Here is the full NBK before the brackets are announced later this evening.  Let me decode the hideous color scheme:

• Green are automatic qualifiers.  These NBK teams took care of business, won their conference tournament and are in the field.  They simply await their seed and location assignments.   Today is nothing but a party for them.
• Gray are teams we deem OUT.  No chance of their name being called.  The NBK committee has spoken.
• Orange teams remain in limbo, but all evidence points to their inclusion in the field of 68 today.

Adding up the Greens and Oranges, we project 10 teams in the field this year with the slightest chance of making the second weekend and their first ever Sweet Sixteen.

KenPom rankings are not final, as there are a handful of championship games to be played today.

Note: An earlier version of this post credited Houston with winning the American conference championship prematurely.  

Let’s recap activities from Wednesday for those teams who have never made the Sweet Sixteen since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985 aka the Never Been Kissed.

Virginia Tech went cold as ice and Notre Dame kept their dim hopes alive as the Irish downed the Hokies in the ACC tournament.  Va Tech drops to a 9-seed on Lunardi’s bracket but are still safely in the field of 68, it seems.

Congratulations to Bucknell on their second consecutive NCAA tournament berth, as the Bison demolished Colgate in the finals of the Patriot League.

No conference finals slated for Thursday or Friday, just quarterfinal and semifinal action until the weekend.   I will be watching the Michael Porter Jr show, and trying to catch Webster Groves in the state quarterfinals.

South Dakota….OUT.

The Coyotes lost to South Dakota St in a game the Jackrabbits seemed to control from the opening tip. We at NBK HQ might have made a mistake in selecting SD as our Summit League rep, as SD St looks more like a team capable of pushing through to the second weekend.  We will blame KenPom for that oversight.

Northeastern….OUT.

The Huskies took a different, more-agonizing path to ending their season.  In the Colonial final, Northeastern controlled the action throughout and had a 65-60 lead with under a minute to play and a 96.5% win probability per KenPom.   They converted that advantage into a seven-point overtime loss and a one-way ticket to Get Em Next Year.  Ugh.

Only one final tonight, and it has NBK implications.  Bucknell looks to squeeze out the Colgate in the Patriot final.