I agree that respect for the schedule strength of major conference teams could work against us. Comparison to the Mountain West teams is interesting. Like the WCC, they have one team in the top 25 and two bubble teams. I feel like that is a MUCH deeper conference (4 other teams ranked 61-84 in the WOB ranking) than the WCC, which has 3 really good teams and hot garbage after that (the 4th highest ranked team is #119). That’s why SDSU’s collapse last week was really helpful to us. All things being equal, the Mountain West is more deserving of having 3 teams in than the WCC, but if the Aztecs lose at home to Utah St and @ New Mexico next week, that’ll be a 4-game losing streak and their hopes for an at-large bid will be toast.
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in a funny world you probably want SDSU to stomach a USU loss then beat New Mexico so the MW goes full OG Pac 12 in cannibalizing itself
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It’s late April and we are still talking about brackets. Let’s be grateful for that for a moment.
Here’s the Five Star Bracketology write-up for this week. In sum, win at SMC at all costs. It’s much easier that way.
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I hope you meant late February. Otherwise I’ve been in a coma for two months.
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Welp, at least this way you know that I haven’t yet been replaced by the computers 
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From Bleacher Report: Latest Stock Watch for 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament Bubble Teams
Saint Mary’s Gaels Resume: 25-4, NET: 26, RES: 31.0, QUAL: 31.3
Past Week: W at Seattle, W at Washington State
Santa Clara Broncos Resume: 23-6, NET: 40, RES: 43.0, QUAL: 37.3
Past Week: W at San Francisco
While Gonzaga couldn’t survive West Coast Conference play without suffering a loss to a team outside of the top three, it is almost official that both Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara are going to do so.
The Gaels already have finished that fight with their pair of road wins this past week. They lost at Santa Clara and at Gonzaga back in January, and all that is left on their regular-season slate are the home rematches of those games.
If they win either one, they’re probably going to be in good shape. Beating Gonzaga would do more good for their resume, giving them an upper-echelon win that has been lacking all season. But ending the regular season at 26-5 with only one loss outside of Quad 1—a Quad 2 “neutral” site game against Boise State in Idaho Falls—and what would probably be top 35 metrics across the board would be hard to deny.
Santa Clara does still have a home game left against Oregon State after the game at Saint Mary’s. Considering the Broncos won by 38 in Corvallis back at the start of WCC play, though, we like their chances in that one.
At least one more win over Saint Mary’s is a must, though, as Santa Clara’s resume with a terrible Quad 4 loss to Loyola-Chicago is nowhere near as clean as the Gaels’.
Winning the regular-season one would be better than winning the projected showdown in the WCC semifinals—unless they also plan on securing the auto bid with a championship victory over Gonzaga. Because not only is a road win over the Gaels more valuable than a neutral win over the Gaels, but it would mean one fewer loss on their final resume.
Short of upsetting the Zags, though, these teams have done all we could possibly ask them to do over the past two months. And there is a plausible path to a three-bid WCC because of it.
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Every time I look at our NET or see an article like this I can’t help fixating on the Loyola-Chi loss. Sorry to dwell on the negative but if we don’t make the tourney, that singular loss is the reason why. It gives the talking heads the negative counterpoint to cite in considering our resume and an excuse for the selection committee when they’re making final decisions amongst the bubble teams.
Eliminate that bad LUC loss and our NET is likely in the low 30’s or better; add in an ASU win (instead of coughing up the 17pt half time lead) and our NET is likely low 20’s, ahead of SMC.
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Don’t forget about the 1 pt loss to Saint Louis while you’re at it.
But then take a breath and remind yourself that we’re not out of the big dance yet!
A lot of bubble teams have bad losses.
We’re still searching for our glass slippers, but they are somewhere close by.
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Feb 24th: BIG BIG NIGHT in Bubble Watch!
Lunardi projects SCU as one of 4 play-in 11 seeds.
The other three (TCU, Mizzou, and New Mexico) are playing tonight.
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TCU is playing Arizona State and New Mexico is at Nevada. So there’s some additional intrigue with common opponents, though it’s closer to a wash for UNM and Nevada since SCU played both. ASU beating the Horned Frogs would just about torch TCU’s chances which gives a major opening to SCU.
The other big game, in my opinion, is USC at UCLA. Both USC and UCLA are bubble teams with UCLA starting to look ascendant and safe while USC going the opposite direction. SCU doesn’t want to be competing against both LA Big 10 teams on the Bubble, so better that the Trojans die easy tonight at the hands of their rivals.
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Some quick thoughts on Lunardi’s new bracket, with the caveat that there are many mock brackets and this is just one of them:
What jumped out to me the most is that Indiana last Friday was a #9 seed and they did nothing wrong, losing on the road to a #2 seed Purdue. Yet they tumbled all the way to a #11 seed and the last team with a bye. The teams that are now ahead of Indiana are:
- Auburn (stayed at #10 after upsetting Kentucky)
- UCLA (moved from #11 to #10 after upsetting Illinois)
- Texas (dropped from #9 to #10 after losing to Georgia)
- Georgia (switched places with Texas after beat them, moving from #10 to #9)
- UCF (stayed at #10 after winning at Utah)
- A&M (moved from #10 to #9 after winning at Oklahoma)
If I’m gonna overanalyze this, the conclusion is not good for us. It suggests that there is a very large gap between the last 4 byes and the last 4 in. Winning at SMC may not be enough to get us out of the Dayton play-in round, unless one or more of those teams really collapses. We might have to complete a 3-game sweep of St. Mary’s when we play them in the WCC semis.
At the other end of the bubble, this is now two times in a row that he has left West Virginia as the final “next four out” team despite a loss. Seton Hall and VT remained in the same order right above WV after winning on Saturday. The only movement in the “next 4 out” was Cal and VCU switching places. I would interpret that as saying that (barring a bad loss to Oregon St or the WCC quarterfinals) there are really only 5 teams that can boot us out: Ohio St, USC, Cal, SDSU, and VCU. And we already have a cushion of two teams below us.
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There are 31 autobids. What percentage of those autobids will be secured by teams who would’ve made it into the Dance as an at-large anyway?
It’s also worth keeping track of the WAB ranking. There is a fairly precipitous drop in between where SCU is (ranked #41 with a 1.56 WAB) and Ohio State. (ranked #45 with a 0.98 WAB).
So, Broncos are at #40 in NET and #41 in WAB (just a hair behind #40 Texas A&M at 1.60).
31 autobids + 41 (assuming that SCU’s WAB rank trumps its NET, for argument purposes) = 72. I’d expect the ACC, SEC, BigTen, and Big12 tourneys will be won by teams who will be in regardless. that moves the 72 to 68. Puts us squarely on the bubble, with no room for error. It’s possible that the Atlantic 10 is won by someone other than SLU, but the Billikens are squarely going to be in the tournament anyway. Miami (OH) is an interesting case: currently at 48 NET and 35 WAB. Akron is the only real contender at #61 NET. If 20-5 Akron (with zero Q1/Q2 victories) wins the MAC tourney, will Miami(OH) still get in? #24 NET Utah St. could help tremendously by winning the MWC tournament.
Bottom line: we are going to sweat it to the finish.
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@buckets Good analysis. Amusingly, you seem to have omitted the WCC as one of the conferences that will be won by a team that will be in regardless. For purposes of this scenario, we are looking at our chances of getting an at-large bid, which only comes into play if Gonzaga or St. Mary’s wins the auto-bid.
Another way to look at it is that the cutline in all these mock brackets is the 6th #11 seed, which is #46 overall. Everyone seeded #12 or below is in the bracket from an auto-bid. So if the A-10 gets a 2nd team in, that lowers the cutline to #45. I think the Mountain West is another conference that could steal a bid.
Miami(OH) is indeed an interesting case. I see them at #10 or #11 seed in every mock bracket, but I saw a stat that (if I remember it correctly) there has never been a team with fewer than 4 losses that didn’t make the tournament. Would the committee really shut them out if they lost once in the regular season and then again in their conference tournament, to finish with 2 losses? Here’s where it gets interesting:
- Let’s assume that Miami(OH) is sitting at #41 or #42 as a #11 seed that doesn’t have to play in the “First Four” in Dayton. Then they lose in their conference tourney but the committee decides to still keep them in the tournament. Since they’ll no longer be a conference champion, they will probably drop to #46 and get sent to Dayton.
- If we are sitting right on the cutline at #46, then a Miami(OH) at-large bid (coupled with the auto-bid for their conference mate) would be the thing that kicks us out into the NIT. That would be very bad.
- HOWEVER, if we are sitting at #43 as the best of the 4 teams in the Dayton bracket, then we would move up to #42 and get a bye into the round of 64. That would be very good.
- The best thing for SCU will be for Miami-OH to lose a regular season game or two. That way, maybe they’ll get a #12 seed even if they win their conference tourney. That could open up an extra spot for SCU to skip straight to the round of 64.
Apologies for clogging up the board this morning. Here is this week’s schedule for bubble teams. Numbers in parentheses represent the seeding based on this morning’s ESPN bracketology. It’s interesting that every single bubble team playing on Wednesday will be facing a team rated higher than them (or in the case of SMC, facing another bubble team).
Tuesday
3:30 Miami-OH (11) @ Eastern Michigan
4 PM West Virginia (Next 4 out) @ Oklahoma St
4 PM Indiana (11) vs Northwestern
6 PM Missouri (11) vs Tennessee (5)
6 PM TCU (11) vs ASU
6 PM Auburn (10) @ Oklahoma
8 PM UCF (10) @ BYU (6)
8 PM New Mexico (11) @ Nevada
8 PM USC (First 4 out) @ UCLA (10) - If USC wins this game, then we better beat SMC.
Wednesday
4 PM Texas (10) vs Florida (3)
4 PM Georgia (9) @ Vandy (5)
6 PM A&M (9) @ Arkansas (5)
6 PM Ohio St (First 4 out) @ Iowa (8) - If OSU wins, then we better beat SMC.
7 PM Cal (First 4 out) vs SMU (8) - If Cal wins, then we better beat SMC.
8 PM SCU (11) @ SMC (9)
8 PM SDSU (First 4 out) vs Utah St (7) - If SDSU wins, then we better beat SMC.
Idle
Clemson (9)
VCU (Next 4 out)
VA Tech (Next 4 out)
Seton Hall (Next 4 out)
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We can only control what we can control at the end of the day, just proud of this team. I think that we can all agree this Broncos team has exceeded our expectations.
I can honestly say that if I was told at the beginning of the season that SCU will be 14-2 in conference and squarely on the bubble with two regular season games to play, would I take that? “Hell yes, and twice on Sunday!!”
Yes, it’s stressful, but exciting to be having these discussions at this stage of the season. It’s been 30 years!
Lastly, Bracket Matrix provides bracket ranking accuracy over the last 5 years. Notables like Joe Lunardi, Jerry Palm, and Andy Katz rank in the 100’s. However, Bauertology has been referenced by Patty Mac and others. It ranks #11. I personally have referenced DRatings as it has included NIT projections. It ranks #15.
Go Broncos!!!
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I echo your sentiment on being proud of the team.
Lost in shuffle of bracket projections is that SCU is going for its 24th win tomorrow, which would be the most under Sendek, post season included, and most in the regular season since Dick Garibaldi was coaching the Broncos. It’ll be one of Herb’s highest win total seasons at all.
Caveats of course for the higher number of games (this will be a 31 game regular season), etc., but its the most conference wins ever if we beat SMC or OSU. Beyond the CIT/CBI seasons (heavy eye roll), SCU just hasn’t be able to get to win totals like this, nor keep double digit losses off the final tally (95-96 was the last time we lost single digit games, 9).
Dance or not, this is the best Santa Clara team since at least Davey’s final year if not Nash’s. There is so much to be happy with. I’m personally coming around to Dayton, if it must be, to be the capstone for the history books.
I ran into a buddy yesterday who asked whether Wednesday was a must win. He’s a graduate of two schools with rich basketball heritage, many national titles, etc. When I started laying out the contingencies of how we might make it even if we lose to SMC, he said “You’re talking as though they’ve already lost. Your fanbase is clearly battered. Time to turn the tide, just go win in Moraga. It’s not impossible - it’s what a good team would do.”
I’m channeling a little bit more of that winner’s mentality for Santa Clara, with the fact that a loss @ a top 30 NET team is not actually that damaging still rattling around in battered SCU fan head.
We are going to be so very cuspy - it seems we need a countervailing force to cancel out the LUC loss. I’d love to get it tomorrow.
It’s going to come down to how the ball bounces in Moraga and in all the gyms listed above over the next week and a half.
What fun!
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I just checked out the Bauertology bracket. It mirrors the ESPN bracket pretty closely, with the only notable difference at the bubble cutline being that Bauer had USC in instead of Indiana. I hate that these major conference teams get so many bites at the apple to get quality road win. I remember driving to Moraga during my junior year of 94-95, and watching our guys clinch the regular season title on their home floor. We’ll need to channel a game like that tomorrow.
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USC, for example, gets to play UCLA today, then a home chance against Q1-A Nebraska, then a Q1 chance @Washington (who is a sparkling 13-14 overall, 5-11 in the Big 10 yet #56 in NET), then UCLA again in the Galen Center which conceivably could also be a Q1 chance by then.
All four remaining games could be Q1!
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This is why the pivot to WAB is salutary for Santa Clara. The WAB punishes SCU for losing to Loyola quite significantly. They’ve had to win at least two more games than they otherwise would to be in the same position as if SCU had just beaten the Ramblers. But WAB measures success against your entire schedule and finds (so far) that Santa Clara has handled its schedule as a Tournament team would. They will still need to beat SMC one more time, as both the WAB and objective resume will need that shot in the arm to keep the Broncos afloat.
Nashty -
I love your buddy’s response and he is exactly right. Go handle your business as that’s what good teams do! Find a way!
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