Michigan had a very good week. On Tuesday night, the Spartans threw themselves into the bubble with a home win over No. 5 Illinois. Just 48 hours later, they won Ohio State No. 4. Now, MSU is in the key for Friday.
The Spartans are among the last four teams, so they are still comfortably in the bubble, but a week ago, few thought that we would talk about the State of Michigan as a potential tournament team, because the schedule looked very scary. So much for that idea
NET was not so kind to the Spartans. Michigan State moved up just six positions, from 81st to 75th, after the victory over Illini. The Spartans only moved up seven places to 68th with the victory over OSU.
And in case you still feel that the winning margin is not an important factor at NET, when North Carolina smoked Louisville for 45 points on Saturday, Tar Heels jumped 20 positions in the NET ranking, from 53 to 33 . Michigan State won its two games by 13 points combined.
Ohio State remains number 1 seed
At the top of the key, the state of Ohio remains the fourth seed No. 1, largely because no one came to take it from them. Among the teams right behind them, not only did Illinois lose this week, but also Alabama and Oklahoma.
Villanova is also runner-up and the Wildcats won the game, but have not yet been able to put together a strong enough resume to fight for the top. The relative weakness of the Grand Orient is not helping them.
Top Bracketology Seeds
Check out Palm’s last key, full field of 68 and all teams in the bubble at the Bracketology hub.
Another team from Big East has one of the strangest tournament resumes I’ve ever seen. Creighton is 10-2 against the first two quadrants, with one defeat being from a point in Kansas. They are a perfect 8-0 against the five other best rated teams on the NET in conference games, but 2-4 against the four teams below that. The Bluejays have three losses in the third quarter and the loss in the second quarter is a loss on the road in Butler that is likely to recover along that line.
Teams with four bad defeats don’t usually make it to the tournament, let alone get good seeds. Still, the top of your resume dictates that they should be in the top half somewhere and be a No. 5 seed in the bottom bracket.
NCAA releases contingency plans
On Thursday, the NCAA announced a contingency plan at the event that teams must either withdraw from the tournament or consider it due to problems related to COVID.
Before the key is released, a league may replace its automatic qualifier if it is determined that it cannot participate in the tournament. If a potential at-large team has to withdraw, the committee must be notified by 11:00 pm Eastern Time the day before Selection Sunday.
After that time, and up to 48 hours after the announcement of the key, if a team in a league in a bid has to give up, that conference may nominate a substitute and that team will move to the previous team’s position in the key.
If a multi-bid league loses a team, it will be replaced by the team with the best ranking by the committee in the top four in the same place on the stand. These teams are usually the first four seeds at the NIT and will still be, if not used to fill holes in the key.
Note that once the key is announced, it will not change, except to replace one team with another in the same location. There will be no scrambling of seeds. And after 6 pm ET on Tuesday, no teams will be replaced. If someone has to get out, this is just a hole in the support. The other team in that game moves forward.
The committee really couldn’t do much more. They cannot make last-second substitutions due to travel, testing and game preparation for each team. And as soon as the tournament starts, you just need to continue. They cannot replace a team on Sweet 16.
And the committee needed to have a kind of plan because it is likely to be implemented. It is unreasonable to expect the committee to be able to select and distribute the tournament with the teams they would like and to have all 67 games played smoothly. I hope that’s the case, but it just doesn’t seem realistic.
Covid-19 already affecting conference tournaments
We are already seeing difficulty in getting full fields for conference tournaments. Charleston Southern was forced to withdraw from the Big South Tournament due to COVID problems within the program.
Another school in that city, Charleston of the Colonial Athletic Association, had to cancel the rest of its regular season, although it hopes to be able to participate in the conference tournament, which begins on March 6.
If Charleston can participate, he will not have played in 15 days. This will be the sixth longest difference between games between the ten teams in the league. Delaware and UNC Asheville have not played since January 31. Three others have been out since mid-February.
At the West Coast Conference, Portland had to cancel the rest of its regular season on Thursday. The pilots are questionable for the conference tournament, which is scheduled to start on March 4.
And if you have been following the news, we still have no word on whether Gonzaga and BYU will participate in this tournament or not. Friday is the deadline for conferences to notify the NCAA of how they will choose their automatic qualifier.
One of the most difficult things about making the keys this season is comparing teams with a different number of games. For example, in the middle of this bracket, you will see Xavier and Colorado on the same line. It is not easy to compare a team that has 18 wins (and 7 losses) with another that has only played 17 matches.
Starting on Friday, the key will be updated daily if an update is required.