NCAA Tournament 2017: Stock Watch for Bubble Teams at Week 14
With just three-and-a-half weeks remaining in the 2016-17 men's college basketball regular season, which bubble teams will capitalize on their remaining opportunities?
In the past seven days, Syracuse, Kansas State and California were among the ones that most improved their chances of reaching the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, it seems Arkansas, Clemson and Georgetown are among the teams that would be content with vying for a NIT championship.
The good news for people who want to see bubble teams succeed is that the scales for this stock watch were more balanced than in recent weeks. For a while, it seemed like there were three or four "Stock Down" candidates for each "Stock Up" one, but it was a fairly even number of teams playing both into and out of the projected field this time around.
Using Monday night's projected bracket as a loose guide for who is and isn't on the bubble, these are the up-in-the-air teams that have moved up or down the most since our Feb. 1 bubble stock watch.
Be sure to note this isn't meant to cover every squad on the bubble. For instance, Indiana is smack-dab on the bubble, but its only game in the past seven days was a five-point road loss to Wisconsin. It was a missed opportunity, but it did little to change where the Hoosiers sit in the national hierarchy.
We're only looking for the teams that have moved the needle with their recent results.
Stock Up: Syracuse Orange
1 of 11
Computer Resume: 16-9, RPI: 64, KP: 48, SOS: 47
Recent Games: W 66-62 vs. Virginia; W 82-81 at Clemson
Position in Monday's Bracket: Last Five In
Tyus Battle was the star of Saturday's win over Virginia, scoring a career-high 23 points on just 11 field-goal attempts. The Syracuse Orange had already gotten big games out of Andrew White III, John Gillon, Tyler Lydon and Taurean Thompson in the past few weeks. Now that Battle has shown an ability to take a game over, this is becoming one of the country's most dangerous starting fives.
But it was Battle's less impressive game that may have saved Syracuse's season. The freshman only scored six points in Tuesday's win over Clemson, but three of them came at the buzzer to give the Orange a one-point road win.
They have now won five consecutive games, picking up all four of their most impressive wins of the season in the process. Somehow, the team that lost nonconference games to Connecticut, Georgetown and St. John's and that opened ACC play with a loss to Boston College is alone in fourth place in the standings of the country's deepest league.
Because of the hole Syracuse dug in the first two months of the season, there's still work to be done. A 9-9 ACC record might cut it for most teams, but the Orange probably need to get to 11-7, which means going 3-3 the rest of the way. That remaining schedule before the ACC tournament consists of two games each against Louisville and Georgia Tech, home against Duke and at Pittsburgh.
The logical course to three wins against that stretch would be to sweep Georgia Tech and beat Pittsburgh, but there's no logic to the run this team is on. At this point, Syracuse could win at Louisville, and it would hardly feel like an upset.
Stock Down: Arkansas Razorbacks
2 of 11
Computer Resume: 17-7, RPI: 49, KP: 59, SOS: 62
Recent Games: L 78-83 at Missouri; L 59-72 vs. Vanderbilt
Position in Monday's Bracket: First Five Out
Arkansas just had one of the worst weeks imaginable for a team on the bubble.
First, the Razorbacks lost to Missouri, which had not won a game since Dec. 6 and is otherwise 0-15 against the KenPom Top 200 this season. Granted, the Tigers had put up some decent fights at home this season. Their only loss in the Mizzou Arena by more than an 11-point margin was a 79-60 game against Arizona. Still, aside from a home loss to Washington State or Oregon State, that's as bad as it gets in major-conference play this season.
And, apparently, the Razorbacks were still shell-shocked by that result by the time their home game against Vanderbilt began on Tuesday, because they fell behind 25-4 in what felt like the blink of an eye. The Commodores made seven three-pointers in the first 7:02 and never allowed Arkansas to get the margin back to within single digits.
Vanderbilt is better than its record, as evidenced by recent wins over Florida and Iowa State. However, if you're Arkansas, you simply cannot follow up that hideous game against Missouri with a home loss to a team that needed that win just to get back to a .500 overall record.
Even before this week, Arkansas' resume was looking weak. It had one quality win (at Tennessee), one bad loss (vs. Mississippi State) and little else. The main reason the Razorbacks were in the projected field was the minimal number of total losses. Now that they have more Ls—and several ill-advised ones—they'll need to finish strong.
Like Syracuse in the ACC, Arkansas' 9-9 SEC record won't cut it. Anything short of a 5-2 finish to get to 11-7 would mean the Razorbacks pick up at least one more bad loss, which could be the final straw.
Stock Up: California Golden Bears
3 of 11
Computer Resume: 18-6, RPI: 38, KP: 53, SOS: 46
Recent Games: W 77-75 vs. Utah; W 77-66 vs. Colorado; W 68-43 at Arizona State
Position in Monday's Bracket: No. 10 seed
Good luck finding a bubble team having a better month than California.
The Golden Bears aren't quite undefeated since Jan. 8, but they did improve to 8-1 with Wednesday night's win over Arizona State. Outside of the game that started this run—a one-point road win over USC—not one of the wins was noteworthy. Over time, though, picking up decent wins while avoiding losses adds up to a solid resume.
Six weeks ago, California wasn't even in the RPI top 100. But after a bunch of home wins over the likes of Stanford, Utah and Colorado, the Golden Bears are comfortably inside the RPI top 50 and are in sole possession of third place in the Pac-12. Not bad for a team that no one was projecting for a top-four finish when conference play began.
Having said that, this is a resume that is flimsy enough to turn on a dime.
Cal is 1-5 against the RPI top 50, has a total of just four RPI top-100 wins. And let's not forget the unpalatable neutral-court loss to San Diego State. A win over either Arizona or Oregon would just about seal a bid; but fail to pull off one of those upsets and also suffer a road loss to Stanford, Utah or Colorado and there will be doubts about just how good this team/resume is.
But we'll cross that bridge if Cal comes to it. For now, this is a hot team that is thriving on defense, limiting six of its last eight opponents to fewer than one point per possession.
.png?w=256 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
Stock Down: Clemson Tigers
4 of 11
Computer Resume: 13-10, RPI: 52, KP: 42, SOS: 22
Recent Games: L 61-109 at Florida State; L 81-82 vs. Syracuse
Position in Monday's Bracket: No. 11 seed
Clemson might be the most fascinating bubble team I've ever tracked.
Normally, a 3-8 conference record means a team would be lucky to go to the CBI or CIT, but the Tigers somehow have a resume worthy of NCAA tournament consideration. They have three RPI top-50 wins and eight RPI top-100 wins with only one bad loss—a neutral-court game against Oklahoma when they were playing without both Shelton Mitchell and Elijah Thomas.
However, the sheer number of losses is catching up with them in a hurry.
They finally ended their six-game losing streak with back-to-back wins over Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech, but they got right back on the wrong track with a 48-point shellacking from Florida State and a home loss to Syracuse.
Though it wasn't nearly as ugly as the game against the Seminoles, the loss to the Orange was the most painful one. It was a game Clemson needed to win in order to have any realistic hope of finishing 9-9 in conference. Instead, it became the Tigers' fourth home loss in ACC play—four losses that have come by a combined margin of nine points.
A win at Duke on Saturday would go a long way toward getting the Tigers back into the projected field. (They were a No. 11 seed before the loss to Syracuse, but that likely bumps them into "First Five Out" territory.) Fail to pull off that upset, though, and they might need to finish the regular season with six consecutive wins.
Stock Up: TCU Horned Frogs
5 of 11
Computer Resume: 16-7, RPI: 35, KP: 33, SOS: 33
Recent Games: W 78-63 vs. Texas; W 62-61 vs. Texas Tech
Position in Monday's Bracket: No. 10 seed
Following the home loss to Auburn in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, it seemed like TCU's goose was cooked. The Horned Frogs were on a four-game losing streak, sat two games below .500 in conference play and didn't have a signature win better than a couple of home games against Iowa State and Illinois State.
Thus far, though, February has been good to TCU. The month began with a quality win at Kansas State and continued this week with home wins over Texas and Texas Tech.
Beating the Longhorns and Red Raiders in your own gym is nothing worth bragging about. Those teams are a combined 1-13 on the road this season and 0-11 in Big 12 play. But it was important for the Horned Frogs to avoid losing to teams they were supposed to beat—particularly in a week where so many other teams on the bubble failed to do just that.
The Horned Frogs are now 6-5 in Big 12 play, but with a brutal remaining schedule. They play at Baylor this Saturday, at Iowa State the following Saturday and at Kansas before the end of February. They also have home games against Oklahoma State, Kansas State and West Virginia before closing the season at Oklahoma.
If they can get to 9-9 by winning two of the home games and the road game against the Sooners, that would probably be enough. They didn't do much during the nonconference portion of the season, but that part of their resume (10-2, RPI: 34, SOS: 82) isn't so bad that they would need 10 conference wins. Plus, winning two home games against the Cowboys, Wildcats or Mountaineers would bring them to five victories over the RPI top 50.
Regardless of how this ends, though, three cheers for Jamie Dixon. TCU won a total of six Big 12 games in the last three seasons combined. Getting that many Ws in just 11 games is a gigantic step in the right direction for a program that doesn't have a single senior in its starting five.
Stock Down: Utah Utes
6 of 11
Computer Resume: 13-8, RPI: 80, KP: 46, SOS: 76
Recent Games: L 75-77 at California; L 75-81 at Stanford
Position in Monday's Bracket: On the Horizon
It's ridiculous that we're still talking about Utah as a team on or near the bubble, because the Utes have done nothing to earn that distinction.
They have an overall record of 15-8, but they opened the season with back-to-back games against non-D-I schools, hence the 13-8 mark above. And as long as we're expunging wins that don't really matter, let's go ahead and note that Utah played 10 games—and will play three more in the next 11 days—against teams outside the RPI top 150.
That leaves the Utes with a 3-8 record against the RPI top 150, which is, well, not good. And only one of those wins (vs. USC) came against the RPI top 100.
Following losses to California and Stanford, the only possible thing keeping Utah afloat in the at-large conversation is its lack of losses. But is that enough for a team with one quality win and a nonconference SOS rank of 232?
Let's pretend for a second that Utah wins every remaining regular-season game, including the road game against Oregon next Thursday. That would put the Utes at 20-8 overall with just a 4-7 record against the RPI top 100. They would be 13-5 in the Pac-12, but having played only one game each against Arizona, UCLA and USC, that conference record doesn't mean much.
As long as they don't lose to a bottom-feeder in their first Pac-12 tournament game, maybe that would get them in. However, if you're cool with just assuming Utah can win at Oregon, you clearly haven't seen either of those teams play lately.
Stock Up: Atlantic 10
7 of 11
Dayton Flyers: W 90-53 vs. Duquesne; W 77-70 vs. Saint Joseph's
Rhode Island Rams: W 70-59 at Davidson; W 70-62 at Massachusetts
VCU Rams: W 83-77 at Saint Bonaventure; W 54-53 at George Washington
Save for Gonzaga and Saint Mary's, it has a been a terrible year for the minor and mid-major conferences. But at least the Atlantic 10 is playing like it wants to be represented multiple times on Selection Sunday.
Opportunities for quality wins are few and far between in this league, but Dayton (17-5, RPI: 31, KP: 34, SOS: 71), Rhode Island (16-7, RPI: 33, KP: 44, SOS: 53) and VCU (19-5, RPI: 28, KP: 47, SOS: 68) are each in a position where simply avoiding losses to teams aside from each other should do the trick. And they each did so twice in the past week.
Dayton took care of business at home this week and is arguably in the best shape of the bunch. Kendall Pollard has been a stud lately, scoring at least 16 points in four consecutive games. The Flyers missed him early in the season in close losses to Saint Mary's and Nebraska, but they're in first place in the conference with the Pollard, Scoochie Smith and Charles Cooke trio leading the way.
While Dayton won home games, Rhode Island scored a pair of key road wins. Freshman guard Jeff Dowtin hardly played in the first six weeks of the season, but he has been a crucial piece of the puzzle since replacing Jarvis Garrett in the starting lineup, who has missed the past seven games due to an illness. Dowtin had 19 points in the win over Davidson and is now shooting 45.7 percent from three-point range on the season.
But the real A-10 winner of the week was VCU. Because were it not for video review, the Rams were going to lose both of their road games on buzzer-beating threes.
They were up 66-64 at Saint Bonaventure when Matt Mobley drained what appeared to be a game-winning triple for the Bonnies. But there were 0.4 seconds left on the clock, and the fans stormed the court, resulting in a one-shot technical foul. JeQuan Lewis made the shot and sent the game to overtime where the Rams won by six.
Four days later, VCU was up 52-50 at George Washington when Yuta Watanabe made what appeared to be a game-winning triple. But, again, there were 0.4 seconds remaining. There was no technical foul this time, but the Rams pulled off a "trick" play by running the baseline and getting Collin Goss to run into Lewis for a foul. He made both free throws, and VCU somehow snatched victory from the jaws of defeat yet again.
Had the Rams lost both of those games, their at-large dreams would be dead and buried. Instead, they are alive and well.
Stock Down: Northwestern Wildcats
8 of 11
Computer Resume: 18-6, RPI: 43, KP: 31, SOS: 80
Recent Games: L 61-68 vs. Illinois
Position in Monday's Bracket: No. 8 seed
It only took one loss for Northwestern's supposed cushion to disappear, and it wasn't even that bad of a loss. Illinois isn't quite on the bubble, but it is now 7-11 against the RPI top 100 and has a RPI rank of 53. It could have been a lot worse.
But that's how perilous Northwestern's position has been in the projected field for the past few weeks. Decent wins over Dayton and Wake Forest without any bad losses gave the Wildcats a good enough resume to get in if the tournament had started at the end of January, but no-great-wins, no-bad-losses resumes are liable to violent swings.
Northwestern was hoping for an upward swing during this four-game stretch with games against Purdue, Wisconsin and Maryland. Instead, the Wildcats lost the one game they were supposed to win and might now need to upset either the Badgers or the Terrapins in order to feel safe again.
If they lose both of those games and the season finale against Purdue, they'll be in trouble.
Ohio State found out the hard way last year that going 11-7 in Big Ten play isn't the NCAA tournament guarantee it used to be. That's because the Buckeyes went 1-7 against the conference's six best teams. They did have a couple of bad losses early in nonconference play, but even a neutral-court win over Kentucky wasn't enough to save their bid.
Would a home win over Michigan and a season sweep of Indiana be enough for Northwestern, or does it also need to win one of its three remaining games against the best Big Ten teams?
Put it this way: We wouldn't be asking this question if the Wildcats had held serve at home against Illinois. The loss doesn't knock them out of the projected field, but it did open the door for more scenarios in which they don't dance.
Stock Up: Kansas State Wildcats
9 of 11
Computer Resume: 16-8, RPI: 44, KP: 28, SOS: 41
Recent Games: W 56-54 at Baylor; L 71-74 vs. Kansas
Position in Monday's Bracket: No. 9 seed
Kansas State epitomizes the bubble more than any other team in the country this season.
The Wildcats had a terrible nonconference SOS (221), losing to Maryland and Tennessee and boasting nothing better than wins over Colorado State and Boston College. But they didn't suffer any bad losses, which meant it wouldn't take anything extreme in Big 12 play for them to cobble together a tournament-worthy resume. Going 9-9 with a couple of quality wins would be plenty.
Roughly two-thirds of the way through that conference schedule, all we've learned is that Kansas State is apparently evenly matched with every team in the Big 12.
Outside of the 11-point home win over Oklahoma, every game has been decided by a single-digit margin. The Wildcats went 0-2 against Kansas by a combined margin of five points. They lost to Texas Tech by one and fell in overtime to TCU. They beat Baylor by a deuce and defeated Texas by a trey. Every game has been a battle, and every remaining game ought to be. Outside of Saturday's road game against West Virginia, KenPom projects the rest of their games to be decided by six points or fewer.
In other words, there's no telling where this team will end up. That's the case for every bubble team, but Kansas State is even more unpredictable than most. It could go 7-0 or 0-7 the rest of the way, and neither one would be that shocking.
But thanks to the road win over Baylor this past week, the Wildcats are in better shape today than they were in one week ago.
There's still a lot of work to be done, but they're currently 5-6 in Big 12 play with great wins over Baylor, West Virginia and Oklahoma State. A 3-4 finish with a respectable showing in the Big 12 tournament would probably get them in, but 4-3 with wins over Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech and either Iowa State or TCU would allow Bruce Weber and his staff to sleep a bit easier in the week leading up to Selection Sunday.
Stock Down: Georgetown Hoyas
10 of 11
Computer Resume: 13-12, RPI: 67, KP: 56, SOS: 12
Recent Games: L 66-68 vs. Seton Hall; L 64-75 at Villanova
Position in Monday's Bracket: First Five Out
Following consecutive wins over Creighton and Butler in late January, everything was coming up Georgetown Hoyas.
Yes, 10 losses before the beginning of February is a lot. And, yes, they were swept by Providence and had an unsightly home loss to Arkansas State. However, combining those two quality Big East victories with a great neutral-court win over Oregon and a (suddenly valuable) road win over Syracuse was more than enough for this team to look like it belonged in the NCAA tournament.
And, in a vacuum, there was nothing wrong with the losses Georgetown suffered this week. Perhaps the Hoyas should have won the home game against Seton Hall, but an overtime loss to a potential tournament team isn't the end of the world. Neither is an 11-point road loss to a Villanova team with a good chance at serving as the No. 1 overall seed next month. Had they entered the week with eight losses instead of 10, they'd still be in great shape.
Now that there's a "12" in the loss column, though, Georgetown is back on the wrong side of the bubble and has just about exhausted its allotment of acceptable missed opportunities.
As has been mentioned previously in this weekly slider, 14 is the unofficial critical mass for losses. A couple of teams in the past decade have received at-large bids with that many losses, but not one has done so with 15 or more. And if we're still talking about Georgetown's case for an at-large bid on Selection Sunday, that means it's picking up one more loss in the Big East tournament.
If the Hoyas win five of their remaining six—which includes home games against Villanova and Marquette and road games against Creighton and Seton Hall—they would enter the Big East tournament 18-13 overall and 9-9 in the Big East with approximately seven RPI top-50 wins and possibly no RPI sub-100 losses. Avoid losing to either DePaul or St. John's in the Big East tournament and that's got to be a tournament resume, right?
But anything short of 5-1 down the stretch before losing at some point in the Big East tournament and we're talking about a team with at least 15 losses, which is bad news in the at-large conversation. Maybe the selection committee would make an exception if the Hoyas end up with the No. 1 SOS, but it'd be better if they just won the next five games instead.
Stock Up: Seton Hall Pirates
11 of 11
Computer Resume: 15-8, RPI: 36, KP: 52, SOS: 37
Recent Games: W 68-66 at Georgetown; W 72-70 vs. Providence
Position in Monday's Bracket: Last Five In
Survive and advance. Survive and advance.
It's something we hear when favorites barely avert disaster in the NCAA tournament, but it applies to the pre-tournament bubble, as well. And Seton Hall was in survival mode in consecutive games against middling Big East foes.
Over the weekend, the Seton Hall Pirates waged war with Georgetown in what was effectively a temporary elimination game. It wasn't going to be a marquee win for either team, but the loser was destined to be on the wrong side of the bubble shortly thereafter. Neither team could buy a bucket, shooting a combined 4-of-30 from three-point range. They needed overtime to settle it. But the Hall improved to 4-6 in conference play with a two-point win in OT.
The Pirates got to 5-6 by the same margin Wednesday night against Providence. The Friars led for most of the game, but Seton Hall fought back to force overtime, eventually winning on a Myles Powell floater in the final 10 seconds.
The hero of the week, though, was Angel Delgado. But what else is new? Delgado entered the game against Georgetown with 16 double-doubles in 21 games, including a string of 11 in a row earlier this year. Between the two wins, he played all but seven minutes, finishing with 45 points and 32 rebounds.
As long as the big man keeps putting up double-doubles, the Pirates have a chance to dance. They'll need to win at least one of their upcoming home games against Creighton, Villanova and Xavier, but these overtime wins keep them in the projected field for now.
Stats are courtesy of WarrenNolan.com, KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com and are current through the start of play on Wednesday, Feb. 8. Win-loss records only include games played against D-I competition.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
.png?w=480 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
