NCAA Tournament 2016: Stock Watch for Bubble Teams at Week 17

Alabama is one of several SEC teams both on the bubble and trending in the wrong direction with just one weekend remaining before the major conference tournaments begin. It's certainly not all bad news on the bubble, though, as other teams like Butler, St. Bonaventure and Vanderbilt are playing like they actually want to dance.

After all, if one team falls out, another has to move in, right?

There are also quite a few bubble teams simply keeping the status quo, either by taking care of business against hapless opponents (see: Providence) or juxtaposing quality wins with horrible losses to keep the scales in balance (see: Pittsburgh).

Welcome to your final bubble stock watch of the 2015-16 regular season.

There are no fewer than 35 teams still on the bubble—meaning they are either in the projected field and could conceivably play their way out of it, or vice versa—and we've highlighted 15 of those teams to note whether their stock is rising, falling or holding steady.

An awful lot is going to come down to which teams perform well in their respective conference tournaments, but here's how they're trending in advance of those gauntlets.

Stock Up: St. Bonaventure Bonnies

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If you haven't yet made it a point to watch a St. Bonaventure game this season, you're kind of forgiven.

Not only have the Bonnies not been ranked this season, they haven't been ranked since 1971. The mid-major team hasn't received an at-large bid since 2000, either. And according to a recent story by Reid Forgrave of Fox Sports, St. Bonaventure has the third-lowest enrollment among the 351 D-I schools, so you probably don't even know anyone who went to the school.

It takes a lot to cut through all those factors to get some national attention, but Marcus Posley and Jaylen Adams are making it happen.

Posley's name was all over social media on Wednesday night after his 47-point performance in a borderline must-win game against Saint Joseph's. He shot 6-of-7 from three-point range, 15-of-19 from the field and 11-of-12 from the free-throw line, pacing the Bonnies to an absurdly efficient night. They scored 98 points in a 75-possession game while recording just two offensive rebounds. Shooting 63.5 percent from the field as an entire team will do that.

They are now 9-1 in their last 10 games, including a season sweep of Saint Joseph's, a home win over George Washington and a road win over Dayton.

Though their nonconference schedule produced nothing of value, and though they have ugly losses to Duquesne and La Salle, St. Bonaventure has risen all the way to No. 29 in the RPI rankings. A road win over Saint Louis on Saturday would just about lock up a bid.

Stock Down: Florida Gators

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Just 17 days ago, Florida was a projected No. 9 seed.

Now, the Gators need to somehow play their way back into the field.

Truth be told, there was always something fishy about this computer profile.

Playing nonconference games away from home against Miami, Michigan State and Purdue did permanent wonders for their strength of schedule, but the Gators weren't actually beating any teams of value. They did score a very nice win over West Virginia in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge, but a neutral-court win over Saint Joseph's was their only other RPI Top 75 win this season.

Yet, the Gators just kept hovering in the 20s or 30s on both RPI and KenPom.com, despite racking up loss after loss.

But the dam finally broke. After four consecutive losses to South Carolina, Vanderbilt, LSU and Kentucky, Florida is now 17-13 with an RPI rank of 57 and a KenPom rank of 46.

Those are still pretty decent numbers—Connecticut, Syracuse and Michigan are all in our projected field with an RPI rank in the high 50s—but the computer profile is now average enough that we can actually judge this team for 13 total losses against just two quality wins.

Florida finishes the regular season against Missouri in a game that can't possibly do any good—even a win against the SEC's worst team would probably hurt Florida's RPI—so it's going to take some serious work in the SEC tournament. The good news there is the Gators should get an early shot at either Kentucky or Texas A&M in the quarterfinals, as they are headed for a SEC tournament seed somewhere in the No. 7-10 range.

Stock Steady: Pittsburgh Panthers

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It's not easy to break even on the bubble in a week where you beat Duke by a 14-point margin, but Pittsburgh managed to pull it off by turning around and losing to Virginia Tech on Wednesday night.

Credit to Buzz Williams: Losing at Virginia Tech isn't anywhere near the unforgivable crime it used to be. Believe it or not, the Hokies are actually 9-8 in ACC play this season. The only home games they have lost in conference were by single-digit margins against North Carolina and Louisville. Best of luck to Miami trying to clinch a share of the ACC title in Blacksburg this weekend.

Nevertheless, it was Pittsburgh's third less-than-ideal loss of the season on a resume that has a dreadful nonconference SOS and only two RPI Top 50 wins against Duke and Notre Dame—and that win over the Fighting Irish has lost a lot of value over the past few weeks as Notre Dame stumbles to the finish line.

The Panthers are still in the projected field with a little bit of room to spare. They were our top No. 9 seed on Tuesday night, and one RPI Top 100 loss isn't nearly enough to cause a drop of three seed lines. But the loss to VT leaves the door open for a catastrophic finish.

Pittsburgh closes the regular season at Georgia Tech. Even in a vacuum, that wouldn't be a great loss, but it would also likely put the Panthers in the ACC tournament's No. 8 vs. No. 9 game against either Clemson or Virginia Tech. Should they also lose that game, it's likely a second straight March spent in the NIT.

Stock Up: Butler Bulldogs

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Butler entered Big East play ranked No. 9 in the AP Top 25 and proceeded to spend the next five weeks doing everything in its power to miss the NCAA tournament.

At the midway point of conference play, the Bulldogs had not beaten a single team other than DePaul and St. John's—two teams that currently have a 2-28 record against the rest of the Big East. Butler had already been swept by Providence and would also be swept by both Villanova and Xavier by the end of February.

Fortunately, the Bulldogs finally decided to do some sweeping of their own. They are 4-0 against Georgetown and Seton Hall since the beginning of February, including one win against each of those schools in the past seven days.

Is it enough, though?

Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star certainly thinks so:

"

Butler isn't going to the NIT. It better not be, anyway, not after this win, this latest win, this second win against NCAA Tournament-bound Seton Hall. Butler beat the Pirates 85-78 on Wednesday night to assure itself of 20 victories, a break-even record (at worst) in the formidable Big East and a resume worthy of an NCAA tournament.

"

But what about the four nonconference games played at home against teams outside the RPI Top 300, dragging down the strength of schedule of a resume that's biggest strength is arguably its lack of terrible losses?

The two wins over the Pirates look solid, but the Hoyas are now outside the RPI Top 100, leaving Butler with just five wins against that club—versus Purdue and Temple, at Cincinnati and the two against Seton Hall.

Butler has played itself back onto the right side of the bubble, but it better win Saturday's home game against Marquette—a team the Bulldogs already lost to back in late January. Otherwise, the Bulldogs will enter the Big East tournament in a very precarious situation.

Stock Down: Alabama Crimson Tide

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Doesn't it seem like a lot of SEC bubble teams shoot themselves in the foot around this time every year? We've already mentioned Florida's fading fortune, and now we're on to Alabama, which has lost three of its last four games.

It's not just that the Crimson Tide are losing, though. It's that they're losing at home to teams that might not even be invited to the NIT.

Mississippi State and Arkansas aren't terrible teams this year, but those are home games you have to win. For both the Bulldogs and Razorbacks, beating Alabama serves as their only win away from home against a team in the KenPom Top 100. So for those to occur in the past two weeks is a damning indication of how Alabama is playing right now.

And that's bizarre, because in the 10 days before the loss to Mississippi State, the Crimson Tide won a home game against Texas A&M as well as road games against Florida and LSU. They also had wins earlier this season over Wichita State, Notre Dame and South Carolina, giving them a total of four RPI Top 50 wins and six RPI Top 100 wins.

Those wins are why Alabama was in the projected field two weeks ago, before the Mississippi State and Arkansas losses left this resume up a creek without a paddle.

Though conference record doesn't mean much of anything—especially in a league with an unbalanced schedule—it certainly doesn't look good that Alabama is now 8-9 in SEC play and currently tied with Florida for ninth place in the conference standings. Even if the Crimson Tide score a season-ending win over Georgia on Saturday, they still probably need to win at least two SEC tournament games before suffering their 13th loss of the season.

Stock Steady: Providence Friars

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In the span of less than a month, Providence went from a projected No. 4 seed to one of the last four teams in the projected field.

After a monumental road win over Villanova on Jan. 24, the Friars were 17-3 and ranked No. 10 in the following day's AP Top 25. But then they lost six of their next eight games, including a very bad loss at DePaul and a loss to Marquette that resulted in a season sweep at the hands of the Golden Eagles.

Providence's only wins during that time came against Georgetown, and the Hoyas definitely won't be dancing this year. Thus, with less than 10 days remaining in the regular season, Providence was teetering on the bubble with a trio of landmines yet to come.

So far so good, though, as the Friars blew out DePaul on Saturday before barely escaping with a home win over Creighton on senior night (for their zero seniors). Two down, one potential disaster to go, as Providence plays at St. John's on Saturday.

As was the case with the wins over DePaul and Creighton, beating St. John's won't move the needle in the right direction. It would just prevent the needle from drastically moving in the wrong direction. The road win over Villanova and neutral-court win over Arizona are enough to make up for Providence's three losses to teams outside the RPI Top 100, but adding a RPI sub-200 loss to the resume would be a very bad idea.

A win would likely result in an intriguing No. 4 vs. No. 5 Big East tournament game between Butler and Providence. The winner would pretty much lock up a bid, but the loser of that one should be sweating profusely until Selection Sunday.

Stock Up: Ohio State Buckeyes

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The Buckeyes aren't particularly close to the bubble right now, but they're at least in the conversation after Sunday's win over Iowa.

That's more than we could say at any point since Thanksgiving.

Outside of a neutral-court win over Kentucky, the first three months of Ohio State's season were somewhere between forgettable and deplorable. By the end of November, the Buckeyes already had losses to Texas-Arlington, Louisiana Tech and Memphis.

Since then, though, they are 14-0 against teams outside the RPI Top 60 and have picked up a pair of somewhat quality home wins over Michigan and Iowa in the past few weeks.

But, again, they aren't exactly knocking on the door of the field. They do have 11 losses—three of which were pretty bad—and the three wins that we've mentioned are their only victories against the RPI Top 100. However, Ohio State has quietly gotten into a position where a road win over Michigan State in the season finale might be enough to jump into the field.

The current computer numbers (RPI: 75, KenPom: 64, SOS: 57) are middling at best, but a road win over arguably the best team in the country right now would give those numbers quite the jolt. It would also push Ohio State to 12-6 in Big Ten play, and the other seven teams with at least eight Big Ten wins are all projected to make the tournament.

Fail to beat the Spartans, though, and it's probably auto bid or bust. And with the way the Big Ten standings are shaping up, the Buckeyes would likely be the No. 7 seed, thus running into No. 2 seed Michigan State in the quarterfinals. One way or the other, Thad Matta has to figure out how to beat Tom Izzo.

Stock Down: Monmouth Hawks

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Life as a very good minor conference team isn't often fair.

Early on in the season, Monmouth's resume was spectacular. Even after bad losses to Canisius and Army, the Hawks were a projected No. 8 seed in our New Year's Eve bracket, thanks to RPI and SOS that both ranked 17th in the nation. They had true road wins over UCLA and Georgetown as well as neutral-court victories over Notre Dame and USC.

But then all of those teams fell apart.

UCLA and Georgetown have combined for 31 losses and should probably be neck-and-neck for first place in the debate over most disappointing team in the nation. Notre Dame and USC are still in the projected field, but each has 10 losses and has been trending very much in the wrong direction as of late.

Meanwhile, Monmouth won 16 out of its final 18 games only to drop all the way to 54 in RPI and 176 in SOS. Even Monmouth's nonconference SOS rank plummeted all the way to 95—a real testament to how badly the Hawks were screwed by the major conference foes they toppled way back when.

On the plus side, the Hawks are 13-4 in true road games this season, and they absolutely pass the eye test. But if we're still talking about their at-large resume a week from now, that means they suffered another bad loss in the MAAC tournament that their computer profile might not be able to survive.

At that point, Monmouth would need to pull hard for quite a few other minor conference teams. Arkansas-Little Rock, Saint Mary's, South Dakota State, Akron, Valparaiso and San Diego State are all favorites from supposed one-bid leagues that would have marginally better computer numbers than Monmouth.

Stock Steady: Princeton Tigers

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I've made an abridged version of this case for Princeton in each of the past two projected brackets, but for those of you who don't meticulously read all 6,500 words of those things, here's your chance to catch up.

Princeton has very quietly emerged into the "How could you possibly leave that team out of the field?" RPI range. Entering play on Thursday at No. 31, the Tigers are slightly ahead of Wisconsin and Seton Hall and just barely behind Arizona.

They're also ranked No. 58 on KenPom, which puts them right behind projected tournament teams South Carolina, Dayton and Providence and a few spots ahead of projected tournament teams Oregon State, Colorado and St. Bonaventure.

And if you're wondering whether these dudes can ball, ask Miami how much fun it was to be down 53-47 at home against Princeton with 10 minutes left. The Hurricanes righted the ship to win by a 12-point margin, but Henry Caruso and Devin Cannady—two Tigers who rank in the top 20 nationally in three-point percentage—made things difficult for the team that might win an outright ACC title.

There's a pretty big catch, though.

Despite the impressive numbers and play, Princeton has a grand total of one win against the RPI Top 120 (vs. Yale) and just three wins against the RPI Top 160 (a season sweep of Columbia). And if we're ultimately considering Princeton for an at-large bid, that means it has to lose one more game.

Ideally, that loss would come in a tiebreaker against Yale. If the Tigers take care of business in the next six days against Harvard, Dartmouth and Penn while Yale wins road games against Columbia and Cornell, they would be tied for first place at 13-1, resulting in a one-game playoff.

Because Yale also has a solid computer profile (RPI: 52, KP: 54), that wouldn't be a bad loss for Princeton. It would actually make the earlier win over Yale look better, as it would potentially bump the Bulldogs into the RPI Top 50.

But even then, the Tigers would be very much at the mercy of the bubble, in a position almost identical to the one Murray State found itself in last March. With Louisville and SMU both ineligible for postseason play, though, that might be enough of a difference for Princeton to actually sneak in as the first at-large team in Ivy League history.

Stock Up: Vanderbilt Commodores

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For the past several months, the college basketball world has been obsessing over a bubble team from the SEC with a projected lottery pick. Sure, it had a lot of early losses, but if it could just sneak into the tournament as a No. 11 seed, it would be a very dangerous team to beat.

I'm referring, of course, to the LSU Tigers and Ben Simmons, but shouldn't the same be said about Vanderbilt and Damian Jones?

Like LSU, Vanderbilt was a preseason AP Top 25 team, expected to be one of the top candidates to play second fiddle to Kentucky in the SEC. But it came up short in nonconference opportunities against Kansas, Baylor, Dayton and Purdue before opening SEC play with three consecutive losses.

We were barely even a week into January, and the Commodores were already a colossal disappointment.

But they have now won four in a row and 11 of their last 15 games, including a season sweep of Florida and home wins over Kentucky and Texas A&M. Suddenly, Vanderbilt is back on the right side of the bubble with a chance to effectively clinch a bid on the road against Texas A&M on Saturday.

Even if they're unable to pull off that upset, the Commodores will have a pretty respectable computer resume (currently RPI: 50, KP: 24, SOS: 40) and will enter the SEC tournament as no worse than the No. 5 seed. As long as they don't immediately get bounced by a bottom-feeder like Auburn, they could eke into the field to become the double-digit seed that absolutely nobody wants to face.

Stock Down: American Athletic Conference

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At this point, the entire top half of the AAC is just a big bubble.

Connecticut arguably still has the best resume, but the Huskies have now lost three of their last four, including a bad home loss to Houston. After getting swept by both Cincinnati and Temple, they're likely headed for a sixth-place finish in what is perilously flirting with becoming a one-bid league.

Aside from its aforementioned wins over Connecticut, Cincinnati has done very little this season. The Bearcats do not have a single RPI Top 40 win and have lost to Memphis, Tulsa and Houston in the past month. Unless they win their season finale against SMU, they'll have some serious work to do in an AAC tournament devoid of opportunities for marquee wins.

Tulsa surged nicely through the first 90 percent of February with wins over SMU, Cincinnati and Temple, but finishing the month with a loss to Memphis—its worst RPI loss of the entire season—undid a lot of the good done. The Golden Hurricane did have a nice win over Wichita State way back on Day 5 of the 2015-16 season, but this is a painfully average bubble resume.

Last, and perhaps least, is the only AAC bubble team that actually won the last game it played. But home wins over UCF and Memphis do little to help Temple's case for a bid. The best thing the Owls did this season was go 4-0 against Connecticut and Cincinnati, but having established that those teams are on the decline, it's not hard to figure out that Temple's stock is also slipping.

There are much better conference tournaments out there, but if you love bubble drama, you're going to want to tune in for the AAC tourney. There will be blood.

RPI and SOS numbers courtesy of WarrenNolan.com.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.