If SLU loses here, I honestly think they go to Last Four In and play in Dayton. They played a pretty mediocre schedule and will have a worse resume than SCU with a loss today. With Santa Clara playing its best basketball and SLU playing its worst, I have to the think that the Broncos pull ahead in the ultimate Tournament seeding.
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The CBS Sports forecast brackets are so biased toward P5. Here is CBS’ current 11 seeds (the top 4 of the 6 listed are the play-in games):
Of the 6 teams, SCU has a much stronger Strength of Schedule and a better record overall. Also a better NET and better WAB. Seems crazy to think the Broncos should be in Dayton.
SLU announcing a big extension for their coach this morning is somewhat comic - the last two games are sending them careening toward at-large doom. Did a key player go down or something? They got absolutely clocked in the final regular season game… and it is looking less like a one game fluke.
If I remember deep in the footnotes somewhere, head-to-head is considered by the Committee most intently when the teams are in the same seed group… However, 1-point on a neutral floor is different than if we were getting compared to New Mexico, to me our worst performance.
I agree CBS is off its rocker - it has steadfastly kept us in Dayton (except one aberrational bracket that had us as a 10 for half a day). Then, on the other side of their mouth, they’re one of the few places that has called us a definitive ‘Lock.’
EDIT: Writing off SLU may have been premature but my confidence in them winning the A-10 is falling.
If theres a path a to 3 bid A-10 and 3 bid WCC and the Broncos not in the first four, I’d love it. But that’s too close for comfort for me at this point.
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SLU escaped by completing the largest comeback (21 points) in school history. They actually took a 9 point lead, only to blow that and fall behind by one, before pulling out the victory by 7. Now we gotta hope they make it count by winning the next two games. The announcers said that their best player Robbie Avila is playing through plantar fasciatis, so I wonder if playing 3 straight games will be an issue.
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Some fun hype.
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https://www.bracketmatrix.com/
We’ve trended up to the 10 line today on Bracket matrix, a 10.4 on average… so pretty much 50/50 10 or 11, with a handful of 9s and no one leaving us out, or having us below 11.
Things are still all over the place. 10 v. 7 Kentucky would be interesting, though I’d prefer to avoid those huge name brand schools in that range (North Carolina would be another). Just seems like you’re going to get jobbed.
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Note that with the “stolen bid” in the MAC conference, one of the 11 seeds is now reserved for an automatic qualifier. Now only one of the 11 seeds gets a bye. So as the last #10 seed in the BracketMatrix ranking, that makes us the 2nd to last team with a bye.
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Ávila is (pardon the pun) pivotal to SLU. They blew the seven point lead while waiting for the four minute timeout with Avila on the bench.
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Rooted for North Texas whilE in the pool at the Sahara but they lost in 3ot
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No way this VCU team is on par with santa clara… watching this game now and this is a rough looking game of basketball.
Hats off to Ole Miss for being very resilient in holding on for dear life vs Alabama in the SEC quarterfinals. But that makes the upcoming Oklahoma vs Arkansas doubly important for the Sooners to lose, otherwise the SEC semifinal will feature two bid stealers facing off against each other… meaning that one of these potential bid stealers will advance to the finals. As if we won’t already have enough to sweat out on Selection Sunday.
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I think it’s more important that Oklahoma just loses tonight. If Ole Miss were to pull off the impossible and win the SEC tournament, that would just truly eliminate the unworthy SEC teams like Texas and Auburn.
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Very frustrating watching SEC basketball. It’s basically glorified AAU basketball. Arkansas just another typical Calipari team that just has supreme athletes but don’t know how to play winning team basketball.
@filipinobronco - Yes an Ole Miss tournament championship would eliminate the worst of the “last 4 in” teams, but that would also move SCU closer to that group.
For example, if we are currently sitting as the 5th to last team in, we earn a bye to the round of 64. The addition of one additional auto-bid by a team ranked lower than us (i.e. Ole Miss) would eliminate the team that was previously “last team in”, and then SCU suddenly becomes the 4th to last team in, which sends us to the Dayton play-in round.
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It’s glorious, folks!
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“The Broncos are dancing. For the first time in 30 years, Santa Clara is headed to the NCAA Tournament.”
Athletic Dept trying their absolute best to jinx it.
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“Game on” is ringing in my head …
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I’ve got to imagine there is some informal communication between the NCAA Tournament and the participant schools in order to facilitate some of the travel, tickets, and so on…
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Where we stand (“Ain’t no lie. Bye bye bye” edition):
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We are in the same position as yesterday. The cut line for the bye is #41 and the cutline for qualifying for the tourney is #45. Based on anecdotal evidence from a few mock brackets I’ve seen over the past couple days, there seems to 7 teams (ranked 37-43) competing for the last 5 byes: A&M, NC St, UCF, SCU, Miami-OH, Missouri, and Texas. So as it stands now, 5 of these teams will get a bye and 2 of them will go to Dayton for the play-in round. With all 7 of these teams done, there’s really nothing that can happen between now and Sunday that can improve our chances at the bye, but there are a few things that can dilute our odds.
- Note: I included Texas and Miami-OH in this group because while some bracketologists have them below us in the “last 4 in” group (and I hope they’re right!), some others have them with SCU in the “last 4 byes” group so I will presume there’s a realistic chance the committee may exercise their freewill and judgment to put them ahead of us. Meanwhile, every one I’ve seen has VCU down in the “last 4 in” group.
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I think an argument could be made that St. Louis U. will join our cohort if they lose in their conference tourney, making it 8 teams competing for the last 5 byes, with the 3 lowest of those teams going to Dayton.
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Oklahoma was very kind to us by pulling A&M down to SCU’s level yesterday and bowing out tonight before making us sweat about the possibility of stealing a bid. We owe them a beer. What style of beer? Well a Porter Moser of course! [groan]
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VCU, and the winner of tonight’s New Mexico/SDSU game are still playing but I think they are either going to be “last 4 in” or stealing an auto-bid.
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At this point, the biggest threat to SCU earning a bye is bid stealing. The 2 big ones we are watching are the Atlantic 10 and the MWC where SLU and Utah St held serve today and need to win out. We should also root for South Florida in the American conference. An at-large bid for them (if they lose) seems like a remote possibility, but as a famous scoundrel once said “Never tell me the odds!”
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Lastly, all of the potential bid stealers from the 5 major conferences have bowed out except for Ole Miss. And they still need to pull off two more upsets to do that.
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Here are tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) games that impact SCU:
- 10 AM St. Louis U. vs Dayton (Atlantic 10 semis) - We need SLU to win their conference tourney.
- 12 PM South Florida vs Charlotte (American semis) - Seems remote that USF could lose a game and still earn an at-large bid, but I figure I’ll root for them to win out to remove that scenario entirely.
- 12:30 Ole Miss vs Arkansas (SEC semis) - Ole Miss is the last team from a major conference that can steal a bid, so we need them to lose either this game or in the finals on Sunday.
- 12:30 VCU vs St. Josephs (A-10 semis) - This game itself doesn’t impact SCU, however the winner is on track to play SLU in the finals. Might as well root for St. Joe’s here if that’ll make the path easier for SLU.
- 3 PM Utah St vs New Mexico / SDSU winner (MWC finals) - We need Utah St to win their conference tourney.
That’s it! Only 5 games.
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