Saturday, February 7, 2015

Bubble Watch 2/7: mid-major edition

We covered the Big 11 conferences, but we've got 2 stragglers in the mid-major ranks who need to be broken out.  Tomorrow we'll hit all the conferences in a quickfire session.

Bubble

Old Dominion (17-4) (6-3) RPI 37 SoS 125
Vital signs:  5-4 R/N, non-con SoS 44, 1-0 vs. Top 50, 5-2 vs. Top 100
Signature wins:  VCU, N-LSU
Bad losses:  @UAB?  @MTSU?  N-Illinois St?
The losses at UAB and MTSU, in the context of CUSA, aren't bad.  They're both contending for the title, especially UAB.  In the context of the national bubble though, they hurt.  Especially because they also lost at WKU and N-ISU.  The road/neutral record seems fine...until you realize the best pure road win was George Mason, and they lost to 3 teams on the road better than that (WKU plus the two listed above).  With a good non-con SoS and an admittedly good signature win in their pocket, they'll be on that bubble, and I could see the committee reward this profile.  But they need to win the games they're supposed to on the road.  Their roadie at UTEP coming up means everything.

Wofford (17-5) (11-1) RPI 40 SoS 141
Vital signs:  8-5 R/N, non-con SoS 25, 0-3 vs. Top 50, 2-4 vs. Top 100
Signature wins:  @NC State, Iona?
Bad losses:  @The Citadel
I think they're at least worthy of discussing.  They scheduled up, and all 5 losses are pure road losses.  Lost at Duke, WVU, and Stanford (forgivable), William & Mary (ehhhh)...and then the conference one to Citadel.  That last one is devastating, because you could argue that by getting the one roadie at NC State and essentially going 1-3 in their big roadies, they should be in the discussion because they scheduled up.  I really want to give this profile the benefit of the doubt, so if they run out until their conference tourney, they should be in the discussion.

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