We’ve reached the final week of the 2023-24 college basketball regular season and a handful of conference tournaments are already underway. It’s crunch time for several bubble teams around the country and these are their final opportunities to pad their resumes. We’ll take a look at how Tuesday’s games affected bubble teams’ chances to go dancing in a few weeks.
For reference where teams currently stand in the eyes of bracketology experts, we’ll use the latest brackets of Joe Lunardi of ESPN and Dominic Lese of Bracketometry.com.
Home team in italics
St. John’s 104, DePaul 77
Who knew that completely eviscerating your team in public was the exact remedy needed to cure your woes? Since Rick Pitino called his first season at St. John’s the most unenjoyable experience of his life, the Red Storm have ripped off four straight wins and buried DePaul on Tuesday. Yeah, they don’t get much credit for blowing out the worst power conference team in the country, but the Johnnies are trending in the right direction as far as the bubble is concerned.
Side note, DePaul. What exactly is your purpose in the Big East? What exactly do you do to warrant being there? You are located in one of the best basketball cities in the country and have produced just two winning seasons since joining the league in 2005. This conference once jettisoned Temple football out of the league for being abominable. Get it together.
Providence 71, Georgetown 58
Providence was the other Big East bubble team that handled business against a conference basement dweller on Tuesday. Similar to St. John’s, the win by itself doesn’t move the needle that much, but its nice for the Friars to get back into the win column after a two-game skid.
Barring an upset of regular season league champion UConn on Saturday, Providence will most likely need a deep run in the Big East Tournament to make the NCAA’s.
Clemson 90, Syracuse 75
Clemson took care of business at home against Syracuse on Tuesday, keeping itself in the mix for a possible five-seed in the NCAA Tournament. On the other side, ‘Cuse could’ve really used that Quad 1 win to get back onto the bubble.
The Orange’s regular season slate is now over as they finished 20-11 with a ranking in the 80’s in NET. They were a combined 6-10 against Quad 1/2 foes and that quite frankly won’t cut it for on Selection Sunday, especially in a mediocre ACC. It’s ACC Tournament or bust for Syracuse.
Georgia Tech 70, Wake Forest 69
Wake Forest got clipped by Georgia Tech with .4 seconds left on Tuesday and the Demon Deacons are basically off the bubble at this point. They have completely imploded since their upset victory over Duke a few weeks back, losing three straight games since their students subjected the entire country to 72 hours of court storming debate.
It’s ACC Tournament title or bust for Wake. It didn’t have to be like this Deacs.
Georgia 69, Ole Miss 66
Ole Miss is a team that had struggled mightily for the past month, but could’ve played itself back onto the right side of the bubble with a strong finish to the season and a strong showing in the SEC Tournament. And then the Rebels messed around and lost to Georgia, dinging its flimsy resume with a Quad 2 loss.
Ole Miss has to run the gauntlet in the SEC Tournament next week. Or its the NIT for Chris Beard’s crew.
South Florida 85, Tulane 72
We check back in with AAC regular season champion South Florida, who fought off a frisky Tulane team on Tuesday to extend its nation-best win streak to 15 games. The Bulls remain an interesting team to pay attention to ahead of Selection Sunday as despite their hot streak, they are still considered a team that needs to win their league tournament to make the Big Dance. That is due to their relatively weak strength of schedule and suffering a few bad losses early in the year.
But can you leave out an AP Top 25 team that has won 15 games in a row? That’s a question for the NCAA Tournament Selection committee to mull over next weekend. In the meantime, USF will try to strengthen its case by going for No. 16 when closing the regular season against Tulsa this Saturday.