BubbleGrid for March 7: Oh, Virginia
See this to learn what the BubbleGrid all about.
Oh, Virginia. What are we going to do with you?
No team in recent years has a profile quite like the Hoos. After losing at Florida State Thursday, Virginia has won 3 games against RPI top 25 teams while losing 7 (7!) to teams outside the top 100. In the 13 years of data used to build the CTD selection model, no team with at least 3 top 25 wins has more than 4 losses outside the top 100. That makes it difficult for the model to draw a solid conclusion.
If we expand the window a bit, it doesn't get any clearer. 8 of the 9 teams with 3 or more top 25 wins and 4 101+ losses made the field, but only 1 (the infamous 2011 Southern Cal) of the 9 teams with 2 or more top 25 wins and 6 101+ losses made the field.
The problem with bubble teams that many forget is that you can't evaluate them in a vacuum. No matter how much you think we should shrink the field, there have to be 37 at-large teams. If you want to leave out Virginia, you have to replace them with another team with their own flaws.
That Southern Cal team was selected - and based on the seeding, they were not the last team in - despite 3 losses outside the top 200, and they didn't have a win as good as Virginia's best win. Selection is relative to each season, so that certainly doesn't guarantee anything for Virginia, but it's still too early to count them out.
Of course, now that I write this, they'll probably drop out of the field on Thursday's update.
- Hover over a value for more information
- Shaded teams are predicted to be in the field
- Teams with a * are the projected automatic qualifier (AQ) for their conference. Bold shaded teams have clinched the AQ berth
- Teams are listed in order of their selection confidence by the CTD model. In other words, the last shaded non-AQ team is the last team in, and the first non-shaded team is the first team out.
Data is through games of Wednesday, March 6.
| 1-25 | 1-50 | 1-100 | 1-200 | Road | Good road wins | Bad home losses | |||||
| Team | Score | W-L | W | W | +/- | W | +/- | +/- | +/- | ||
| Wichita St. | > 99.9 | 24-7 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 7-5 | #27 VCU #77 Indiana St. #86 Air Force | #101 Evansville |
| St. Mary's | > 99.9 | 25-5 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 7 | 4 | 10 | 9-2 | #61 Brigham Young #90 Santa Clara #99 Utah St. | |
| Cincinnati | > 99.9 | 20-10 | 1 | 4 | -4 | 8 | -2 | 5 | 5-5 | #37 Pittsburgh | |
| Virginia | > 99.9 | 20-9 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 3-7 | #40 Wisconsin #85 Maryland | #126 Delaware |
| California | > 99.9 | 20-10 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 8 | -2 | 6 | 6-5 | #14 Arizona #49 Oregon #67 Denver #96 Southern Cal | |
| Villanova | > 99.9 | 18-12 | 4 | 5 | -2 | 7 | -3 | 4 | 6-7 | #47 Connecticut | #265 Columbia |
| Belmont * | > 99.9 | 22-6 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 8-5 | #59 Stanford #65 Eastern Kentucky | |
| Temple | > 99.9 | 22-8 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 9 | 8-4 | #53 Villanova #55 Massachusetts #81 Charlotte | #109 Canisius #110 St. Bonaventure #221 Duquesne |
| Boise St. | > 99.9 | 18-9 | 2 | 3 | -3 | 7 | 0 | 5 | 5-8 | #32 Creighton #74 Wyoming | |
| La Salle | 99.1 | 21-7 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | -1 | 9 | 8-5 | #27 VCU | #197 Central Conn. |
| Iowa St. | 92.7 | 20-10 | 2 | 3 | -4 | 6 | -2 | 2 | 3-8 | #69 Baylor | |
| Louisiana Tech * | 86 | 25-3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 10-3 | #99 Utah St. | |
| Kentucky | 72.4 | 20-9 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 6 | -3 | 3 | 4-6 | #57 Mississippi #91 Texas A&M | |
| Tennessee | 46.4 | 18-11 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 8 | -1 | 0 | 4-7 | #91 Texas A&M | #134 Georgia |
| Middle Tennessee * | 37.1 | 27-4 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 1 | -2 | 12 | 11-4 | ||
| Akron * | 2.6 | 23-5 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 7-4 | #66 Ohio | |
| Massachusetts | < 0.1 | 18-9 | 0 | 1 | -4 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 7-4 | #41 La Salle #83 Xavier | #146 G. Washington |
| Stanford | < 0.1 | 18-13 | 0 | 3 | -7 | 6 | -7 | 1 | 5-6 | #50 California #98 Arizona St. | |
| Mississippi | < 0.1 | 22-8 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 5-6 | #56 Tennessee | |
| Iowa | < 0.1 | 19-11 | 1 | 3 | -5 | 5 | -3 | 1 | 2-8 | ||
| Southern Mississippi | < 0.1 | 20-8 | 0 | 0 | -5 | 3 | -3 | 5 | 9-7 | #94 East Carolina | |
| Alabama | < 0.1 | 18-11 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 4-8 | #104 Dayton #128 Mercer #176 Tulane | |
| Stephen F. Austin * | < 0.1 | 20-3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 11-3 | #24 Oklahoma | |
| Bucknell * | < 0.1 | 25-5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 12-4 | #93 Loyola MD | #105 Lehigh |
| Denver | < 0.1 | 19-8 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 4 | -3 | 0 | 8-6 | #72 Northern Iowa #99 Utah St. | |
| Xavier | < 0.1 | 17-12 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 2 | 4-6 | #129 Vanderbilt #235 Wofford | |
| Brigham Young | < 0.1 | 20-10 | 0 | 0 | -5 | 5 | -3 | 0 | 6-5 | #89 Weber St. #90 Santa Clara | #151 San Francisco |
| Baylor | < 0.1 | 16-13 | 0 | 1 | -7 | 4 | -6 | -4 | 4-7 | #52 Kentucky | #144 Northwestern #149 College of Charleston |