Blind Resume: Which Bubble Teams Are Most Deserving of 2016 NCAA Tournament Bid?

Selection Sunday is so close we can taste it, but how do we feel about teams on the bubble when we can't see who they are?

The time has come for blind resumes to completely alter your perception of potential tournament teams.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, we strip away the team names and simply compare computer resumes. Deception is the name of the game, and you may be surprised to find that you prefer the resume of a likely NIT team to that of a team that some feel is a lock for the NCAA tournament.

Along with each set of resumes, we'll provide a little extra information about each team—hopefully without revealing its identity—and then it's up to you to vote for which one you think is better.

In each of these six blind resume comparisons, we have at least one team that is squarely on the bubble, and in five of the six we have at least one team that no one is even mentioning for a possible bid. So, yes, there are right and wrong answers in this exercise.

The identity of each team can be found at the bottom of the page, but play nice and cast your votes before scrolling to find out who's who.

(KP is rating on KenPom.com; RPI is Ratings Percentage Index; SOS is strength of schedule; NCS is nonconference strength of schedule. All data as of the start of play on Saturday, March 12.) 

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Might as well get this party started with the bubble debate that will last all week.

Resume	Team A	Team B	Team C
Record	27-7	24-6	23-8
RPI/KP	53/67	51/36	46/11
SOS/NCS	166/99	162/52	105/13
Road	13-4	12-4	9-3
Neutral	4-2	0-1	1-4
vs. RPI Top 50	2-2	1-1	1-3
vs. RPI Top 100	5-4	4-2	4-7
RPI Sub 200 Ls	3	0	0

As you can probably surmise from the good records, bad overall SOS numbers and lack of quality wins, you're looking at three of the four mid-majors who lost in their conference tournaments before the majors even took the court.

In our hearts, we want to see Monmouth, Saint Mary's, Valparaiso and Wichita State make the tournament.

In our heads, we know we'll be lucky to even get one of them into the field.

Mel Evans/Associated Press

Because they're light in RPI Top 50 and RPI Top 100 wins, the big selling point for each of these mid-majors has been that they scheduled aggressively and did so successfully. All three have a nonconference SOS rank in the top 100 nationally and won at least 75 percent of their true road games.

Team A also performed admirably in neutral-court games and has one more RPI Top 50 win than its brethren, but how do we balance that clear edge with the clearer eyesore of three losses to teams outside the RPI Top 200? Just about everyone on the bubble has bad losses, but no one else has that many losses that ugly.

But what's more important? Who you beat or who beat you?

Time to decide once and for all which mid-major is most worthy of a bid. Cast those ballots.

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*Team F also has four wins against RPI No. 101-105, so let's agree to count those as three RPI Top 100 wins.

There's no cookie-cutter formula for reaching the NCAA tournament, but picking up at least eight RPI Top 100 wins in the process of winning more than 50 percent of games is usually good enough. Every team that met that criteria last March heard its name called on Selection Sunday.

And yet, all three of these teams were on the wrong side of the cut line on Bracket Matrix on Friday morning, so that rule of thumb appears to have hitched a ride out of town—even though we need to dig even deeper into the bubble this year with SMU and Louisville both ineligible for the dance.

Resume	Team D	Team E	Team F
Record	19-13	20-11	18-14
RPI/KP	70/41	61/45	80/61
SOS/NCS	42/117	62/107	33/125
Road	3-8	6-6	3-6
Neutral	3-1	2-2	3-3
vs. RPI Top 50	5-6	4-5	3-12
vs. RPI Top 100	8-10	8-8	5-13*
Sub RPI 100 Ls	3	3	1

But I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to be the biggest blowout during this exercise, showing that one of these three resumes is clearly ahead of the others and perhaps deserves to be in the field. 

These teams have similar SOS and NC SOS ranks, and all three have KenPom ranks that are better than their RPI ranks—which generally means they are better than the old-school rating system wants you to believe.

As was the case in the previous blind comparison, Team D fared better in neutral-court games and has an extra RPI Top 50 win over Teams E and F, but it also has more and worse bad losses than the other two teams.

And this isn't represented in the table, but Team D also has more wins against teams in the RPI 101-200 range (five) than the other two combined (two each). So if you're the type to dig down to RPI Top 150 wins in your resume comparisons, take note that Team D has 13 such wins.

What counts for the most, though? Team D's quality of wins and KenPom rank, Team E's quantity of losses and road wins or Team F's SOS and lack of bad losses?

Make the call.

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Based on record and RPI, all three of these teams are in rough shape.

However, KenPom thinks pretty highly of them, and they each have a decent number of quality wins. And though they each have at least one RPI Sub-100 loss on their resume, not one of those came against a team outside the RPI Top 150, and they all came away from home, so they aren't that bad.

Resume	Team G	Team H	Team J
Record	19-13	19-14	19-13
RPI/KP	78/53	56/43	63/26
SOS/NCS	73/225	16/6	37/26
Road/Neutral	9-9	7-10	5-11
vs. RPI Top 50	3-6	2-7	2-7
vs. RPI Top 100	6-12	7-13	7-10
RPI Sub 100 Ls	1	1	3

Team H takes the cake in SOS, particularly of the nonconference variety. Team H is also the only one of the three that hadn't been eliminated from its conference tournament by the end of the day Thursday.

You might also be interested to learn that Team H went 0-3 this season against Teams G and J. A team's full body of work is exponentially more important than a couple of head-to-head showdowns, but when teams are this tight on the seed line, it's a valid tiebreaker.

Team G's RPI and NC SOS are brutal, but it does have the best road/neutral record and the most RPI Top 50 wins. Meanwhile, Team J has the best winning percentage against the RPI Top 100, and both of its RPI Top 50 wins actually came against the RPI Top 25—though, if we're divulging that information, let's also note that both of those games were played at home and that neither of those Top 25 teams is even in the conversation for a No. 1 seed.

KenPom loves them all, but which blind resume do you love the most / hate the least?

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KenPom giveth and KenPom taketh away.

RPI and KenPom agree with each other more often than not. Of the 68 teams that were in our projected field at the start of the day Friday, 40 had RPI and KenPom ranks that differed by 10 spots or fewer. But there are some instances in which they're nowhere close, as is the case with these teams.

Take away the KenPom numbers, and all three of these teams look solid. They have good overall records, strong road/neutral records, acceptable RPI and SOS ranks and a great balance of quality wins to bad losses.

But how much should it matter that KenPom wouldn't have any of them in the conversation for a bid?

Resume	Team K	Team L	Team N
Record	21-10	22-8	23-9
RPI/KP	59/84	31/79	55/83
SOS/NCS	81/75	77/152	108/154
vs. RPI Top 50	5-5	3-2	2-2
vs. RPI Top 100	7-8	7-6	6-5
RPI Sub 100 Ls	2	2	4
RPI Sub 200 Ls	1	1	0

Team K faced the toughest nonconference schedule but lost all six nonconference games it played against the RPI Top 200. It's one thing to schedule quality opponents, but it would be nice to actually beat some of them.

Team L didn't do much better, playing just three nonconference games against the RPI Top 100—none against the RPI Top 50—and winning just one of them.

And if you're having a tough time deciding between Team L and Team N, here's some insider information: Team N won a true road game against Team L. However, even though Team N is the only one in this group without a hideous loss, that win over Team L was its only against the RPI Top 40.

Which one of these teams is KenPom most undervaluing?

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If there's just one thing we've learned about the selection committee over the past several years, it's that those folks do not take kindly to weak schedules.

Two years ago, SMU was the snub heard 'round the world, as the Mustangs were doomed by a nonconference SOS rank of 303. Utah—which finished that season at No. 42 in KenPom—was never even considered a candidate for a bid with a NC SOS rank of 347. That was also the year that Michigan State and Louisville were favorites to win it all as No. 4 seeds, which they acquired by predominantly facing cupcakes for the first seven weeks of the season.

With that in mind, what do you think the committee will do with these egregious offenders?

The good news for Team Q is that it at least went undefeated against that pathetic schedule. Team P had two nonconference losses, and Team R managed to lose five games before the start of January.

Resume	Team P	Team Q	Team R
Record	22-9	23-8	19-14
RPI/KP	84/57	62/52	87/62
SOS/NCS	134/308	123/270	47/274
vs. RPI Top 50	3-3	1-1	2-10
vs. RPI Top 100	6-6	8-5	7-12
vs. RPI Sub 100	16-3	15-3	12-2
vs. RPI Sub 200	12-2	7-1	7-1

However, Team Q did pick up three RPI Sub-100 losses and one RPI Sub-200 loss in conference play. Compare that to Team R, which faced a much tougher overall schedule and has not lost to a team outside the RPI Top 75 since the first day of December.

Here's one other morsel of information for you: Both of Team R's RPI Top 50 wins came against the RPI Top 10, and one of Team P's quality wins came against No. 11 in RPI. Team Q has the best record of the bunch, but it only beat one team in the RPI Top 50 and was beaten by 27 in its one RPI Top 50 loss.

This is a tough one, right? The sheer number of losses for Team R might make you want to immediately rule that team out, but with 10 more games against the RPI Top 50 than Team Q, shouldn't we expect more losses? Might Team P be the best compromise with minimal losses and at least a few more than two games against the RPI Top 50?

You be the judge.

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Almost every team on the bubble has at least one dreadful loss, but not these guys. Teams S, T and U went a combined 40-0 against teams outside the RPI Top 105.

But how far does simply not losing to bad teams actually take them? After all, they each managed to rack up a double-digit number in the loss column in the process of going a combined 17-36 against the RPI Top 105.

Resume	Team S	Team T	Team U
Record	14-15	21-11	22-10
RPI/KP	83/102	57/51	44/29
SOS/NCS	6/43	50/189	53/104
Road/Neutral	3-10	9-7	8-7
vs. RPI Top 25	3-8	4-6	2-2
vs. RPI Top 50	5-12	4-10	3-5
vs. RPI Top 100	6-14	4-11	7-10
vs. RPI Sub 105	8-0	17-0	15-0

That 40-0 record sure did lose its luster in a hurry.

Team S faced the toughest schedule by a country mile, playing nearly 60 percent of its games against the RPI Top 50. Its overall record is downright hideous and KenPom doesn't care one bit for this team, but can we completely rule out a team that faced such a daunting schedule?

Teams T and U are almost indiscernible from each other, save for the quality of their best wins. Team T has four great wins and little else. Team U only has two great wins, but it also has two good wins and three decent wins—including a 14-point head-to-head win over Team T.

They may not have any bad losses on the court, but two of these teams are headed for a bad loss in the poll. Which ones will it be?

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The Big Reveal

Time to take off the blindfolds and discover the identity of the teams you voted into the field.

As mentioned in the intro, each group features at least one team from either our last five in or first five out, and five of the six groups (excluding the first one) had at least one team that is nowhere near the bubble conversation.

We hope this exercise helped you see that the gap between a NCAA tournament team and a team on the NIT bubble isn't particularly wide.

Road Warriors: A is Monmouth, B is Valparaiso, C is Wichita State

Is Eight Enough?: D is Syracuse, E is Tulsa, F is Washington

KenPom Darlings: G is Florida State, H is Florida, J is Vanderbilt

KenPom Snubs: K is Temple, L is St. Bonaventure, N is Hofstra

The Cupcake Diet: P is Houston, Q is South Carolina, R is Virginia Tech

No Bad Loss Club: S is Stanford, T is Michigan, U is Connecticut

Did you pick all of the right teams? Assuming not, make sure you cut the selection committee members some slack when they also pick a couple of teams that you think have no business making the tournament.

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