By Michael Gross

🔐 Arizona, Iowa St.

“Near Lock”

Houston, TTU, BYU, Kansas 

“Good Shape”

UCF

“Bubble”

TCU, Baylor, OKST, WVU

“Fringe Bubble”

Colorado, Arizona St.

           Iowa St. responded from their loss to Cincinnati by easily beating UCF and OKST. That was enough to secure a bid for them. Their NonCon wins over Purdue, St. John’s and Iowa plus a 10-2 Q1/2 record have them in the running for a high protected seed!

          Houston and Texas Tech are well positioned to secure their bid in the next week or so. Kansas isn’t far behind either. BYU still looks solid, but they do have a tough upcoming schedule.

          Where things start to get interesting is looking at UCF. That was a very important comeback win last night against Arizona St. in the heels of getting blown out at Iowa St. the wins that UCF have over Kansas and Texas A&M plus very solid resume metrics have them well positioned. The predictive metrics however, are lagging about 20 spots lower. They don’t want to take on losses that would drop their resume metrics more towards their predictives. Big opportunity this weekend at home against TTU. Win that and they move up!

         Baylor is much closer to “Fringe Bubble” then “Good Shape”. If they don’t beat Cincinnati tonight they will drop down. OKST we just simply can’t seem to get rid of. The predictives clearly show they aren’t an NCAA Tournament Team. They are also 0-4 in Q1 games. However, their resume metrics are all around 50 and they are 5-2 in Q2 games. They need to turn this stretch of 4 losses in 5 games around by beating Utah this weekend. 

West Virginia is starting to make things interesting. In recent weeks they have beaten Kansas and gotten some important wins over Arizona St. and Kansas St. They also got blown out by Arizona and Houston. The 2-7 record in Q1/2 games needs improvement. They can start that improvement by beating Baylor at home this weekend. The Horned Frogs of TCU kept themselves very much in the mix by beating OKST and Baylor this past week. Now they get a huge opportunity at home against Houston. Win that one and they have a legitimate shot despite the November loss to New Orleans.

           Colorado and Arizona St. are barely hanging on the page. Both will need to start winning streaks imminently to have any chance. Also, Cincinnati and Kansas St. are off the page. 1-9 in Q1/2 games from Cincinnati and 5-11 in Q1-3 games for Kansas St. just isn’t going to cut it.