Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the non-stop conference tournament action in men’s college basketball as much as we have as we sit just 24 hours from Selection Sunday. Every team still standing is making a mad dash for an autobid to the NCAA Tournament with some teams needing to outright win their conference tourney’s to make the Big Dance.
We’ll take a look at how Friday’s games affected bubble teams’ chances to go to the 2024 NCAA Tournament. And we’ll use Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com and Shelby Mast of Bracketwag.com as our guides.
Mississippi State 73, Tennessee 56
We had a classic “Rick Barnes’ing” in the SEC quarterfinals on Friday as Mississippi State showed regular season champion Tennessee the door to advance to the semifinals. The Bulldogs entered the SEC Tourney as a team on the bubble but after knocking off the top-seeded Volunteers, they will be safely in the field of 68 once tournament selections are announced on Sunday.
As for UT, its hopes for grabbing a No. 1 seed are now over after going one-and-done in Nashville.
Purdue 67, Michigan State 62
Sparty put a scare into the Boilermakers in the Big Ten quarterfinals on Friday, but weren’t able to knock off the Big Ten regular season champs in Minneapolis. This was only a two-point game with 20 seconds left, but Purdue was able to make its free throws to put MSU away and advance.
Michigan State will enter Selection Sunday on the “last four byes” line according to Lunardi, but should still make it into the dance. Tom Izzo’s crew is ranked in the top 25 in both NET and KenPom and should get credit for winning a game in the Big Ten tourney before playing Purdue really close.
UConn 95, St. John’s 90
Madison Square Garden was on fire for this classic Big East Tournament matchup and the defending national champions were able to book reservations for Saturday’s title game. St. John’s brought tons of fight to UConn on its home floor and were able to push the powerhouse, but couldn’t quite catch them.
However, a victory in the Big East tourney and a strong showing against UConn should be enough to get St. John’s into the Big Dance. The Johnnies rattled off six straight wins after Rick Pitino publicly buried the team in the media and they should hear their names called on Sunday.
Illinois 77, Ohio State 74
Congrats to the Buckeyes on an excellent finish to the season after the firing of a coach in Chris Holtmann that was clearly holding them back. OSU won six of seven before coming within a breath of beating the Illini today. A win might have been enough to get them at least in the conversation with the Selection Committee, but losing eight of nine between January 6 and February 6 was too much to overcome.
DePaul hired Holtmann today, which seems like a very DePaul thing to do.
North Carolina State 73, Virginia 65 (OT)
If you share in our belief that the Virginia Cavaliers should suffer for their awful style of play, you might join us in calling this Karma. The Hoos are now both Lunardi and Mast’s first team out of the NCAA Tournament, despite being 23-10, 13-7 in conference. Maybe if they played in a real power league like the Mountain West they’d have a case, but it’s tough for these mid-major leagues like the ACC to get at-large bids with their paper-thin schedules… ok, we kid. Sort of.
Virginia has two (2) Quad 1 wins against seven losses. They let Notre Dame and Memphis beat them, who are both bad. There is no one to blame but themselves… and perhaps the Basketball Gods for playing all of 60 possessions a game all season and finishing dead last in pace. Again.
North Carolina 72, Pitt 65
It’s the same story here, as the Panthers made a nice run to end the season but one that will come up short of an NCAA bid. Pitt had won four in a row before today’s ACC semifinal loss. It’s hard to believe a team in this league could be 22-11, 12-8 in ACC play, and still not really be in consideration. But that’s how bad it’s been for this league this season, and Pitt’s 6-2 record vs. Quad 3 teams didn’t help.
Oregon 67, Arizona 59
Well that’s one way to get yourself on the bubble, Ducks. We were lucky enough to be in attendance for this one, and when the Ducks trailed just 33-23 at halftime, something certainly felt amiss. N’Faly Dante had missed plenty of the first period with some kind of injury, but returned before halftime.
And then an Arizona team that was expected to sail to a No. 1 NCAA seed looked like they had never seen a zone defense before, while Oregon scored a jaw-dropping 1.467 points per possession in the last 20 minutes.
Welcome to the bubble, Ducks! You probably need to win one more tomorrow however, against…
Colorado 58, Washington State 52
If there was any doubt about the Buffs being in, this likely ended any discussion. Both Lunardi and Mast have CU as a Last Four In team after this massive Pac-12 semifinal win, but picking up another victory tomorrow over Oregon might even get them out of the First Four as well.
We left this game at halftime for reasons stated below, but it looked like the vaunted Wazzu defense was already struggling with fan favorite Eddie Lampkin at the rim. The Buffaloes are one of the best long-range teams in America, but were just 3-15 from downtown in this one. But WSU was 4-19, and had a ghastly 19 turnovers.
And since Colorado is forfeiting their NCAA Tournament shares to Wazzu and Oregon State anyway, this might end up being a pretty good financial windfall via loss for the Cougars!
New Mexico 74, Colorado State 61
We went here for the nightcap, and it was fun! But it should also lock up a NCAA bid for the Lobos, with Jaelen House’s 19 points and eight assists leading to a championship game appearance against San Diego State in the final.
The Lobos were No. 23 in the NET entering the game, and are now 5-6 vs. Quad 1. Even in a year where plenty of bid steals are still lurking, the Land of Enchantment should be back in the Big Dance for the first time since 2014. But playing four games in less than 70 hours will certainly be a challenge against the Aztecs tomorrow.