NCAA Tournament Preview: Bubble Teams

The Monday morning after selection Sunday is for two things, picking Final Four teams and bitching about bubble teams.

I'll get to my Final Four picks later this week so let's examine the bubble teams.

First those that got in with RPI in parentheses:
Utah State (30) and UTEP (38) both lost conference title games but knowing how hard it is to build a strong RPI from a weaker conference, these teams deserved inclusions.

The last two majors to get in were likely Florida (56) and Minnesota (62). Both of these teams had some big wins, Florida beat Michigan State and Tennessee and Minnesota won 5 games against top 30 opponents (Butler, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Purdue). Minnesota also played its way in with a big performance in the conference tournament which may have been a factor for the committee, they wanted to see which teams would step up in must-win situations that could approximate the NCAA Tournament.

That's why Florida getting in over Mississippi State (55) puzzles me a little. Miss State had the same number of top 30 wins (Old Dominion, Vanderbilt) as Florida but they were of much lower quality. But they beat Florida when the chips were supposedly down.

Three more quick bubble teams who deservedly were left out:
Virginia Tech (59): good record (23-8) but a horrible non-conference strength of schedule. The lost to Temple and beat Seton Hall but they also beat 9 teams above 200 in RPI including North Carolina Central #347 out of 347.
Seton Hall (60): No matter what the committee says they just aren't going to take a 9th team from a power conference over a team that won the regular season in a reasonable conference.

That's why things were going so well for Seton Hall early in Championship Week until Saturday when Houston, New Mexico State and maybe even Washington stole bids.

Illinois (74): Just too low an RPI, in Wofford, Sam Houston State range, they probably couldn't have gotten in even with a win over Ohio State.

But the team I think has the biggest reason to be upset this morning in Rhode Island (40). They played in a decent conference (Atlantic-10 was 7th rated conference) but the problem is no big wins, and five losses against Temple, Xavier and Richmond.

This is another discussion we'll get to later but the lack of a really high quality bubble team that has a major argument with exclusion proves that 64 is perfectand 96 is too many.