Syracuse loses to Boston College (at home)! No, you weren't dreaming... it really happened. Plus, we cover bubble teams like Providence, St. Johns, Richmond, and Marquette. And, could Creighton and Wichita BOTH end up as 1 seeds? Listen to the latest podcast to find out! Don't forget to leave feedback!

Check out the latest podcast with a focus on University of Virginia basketball (UVA) and looking ahead.

Your team has completely tanked in February. They're at or near the basement of your respective power conference. With a record of 4-9 or 5-8, all hopes are gone for a tournament bid, right? Not so fast. Though rare, there are a few interesting case studies each year of teams that tanked early in the conference schedule, yet had such high powered out of conference resumes  that they remained in the mix for an at large. UConn in 2012 is a classic example. At the end of February, the Huskies looked dead in the water. They were 7-10 in Big East play with a painful loss to Providence (RPI 156). Most experts removed them from consideration for an at-large. But they weren't finished. They rallied to get three more wins before bowing out in the Big East Tournament Semifinals. Because of signature out of conference wins against Florida State and Harvard (RPI 13 and 36, respectively) and two quality wins in Big East play, they had done enough to garner a 9 seed in the 2012 NCAA field. 

Take heart Baylor and Oklahoma State fans. You aren't cooked just yet. Take a look at the quality wins each team has amassed thus far:

Baylor (5-8 Big 12):
Colorado (RPI 26) - Neutral
Dayton (RPI 60) - Neutral 
Kentucky (13) - Neutral
Oklahoma State twice (50) - Home and Away
Kansas State (35)

Oklahoma State (4-9 Big 12):
Memphis (34)
Colorado (26) - Neutral
West Virginia twice (71) - Home and Away
Texas (21)


Conference slip ups and general tailspins aside, these are solid overall resumes. Baylor just needs to finish the regular season at 3-2, and they should be safe for an at-large. Oklahoma State has more work to do, but as Marcus Smart returns this weekend, getting an at-large is still entirely possible. A 4-1 finish would get them to the 8-10 conference threshold.  While 8-10 and several quality wins can get you in the field of 68, I have yet to find an example of a 7-11 or 6-10 conference team getting an at-large bid (if you find an example, please let me know). That would mean beating Texas Tech at home and TCU on the road, plus beating two out of three against Kansas, Kansas State, and at Iowa State. Is it a tall order? Sure. Can it be done? With the Marcus Smart and LeMarcus Nash leading the charge, anything is possible. Don't count either team out just yet.

* Photo credit to www,fullscales.com

Check out the inaugural BracketMarch.com Podcast covering the latest news from the A10 and our projected 1 seeds heading into Selection Sunday. 

Note: This is a two part weekend write up on Wichita State. Be sure to check the blog on Sunday for the follow up on the Sycamore/Shocker recap and more discussion on where the Shockers might be seeded in March.

By the end of Thanksgiving Weekend, there were a few teams that I could tell meant business. Not the teams that squeezed out a surprising out of conference win; that happens all the time in November and December. Rather, a few teams in "non-power leagues" (whatever that means) make clear that they will be a force from November through March. No one made a better example of this than the Shockers on December 1st when they won at St. Louis. The Billikens are really, really good this year. They're 16-2 as of January 18th and cohesively haven't lost a beat from the team that beat seven top 50 teams last year. So when Ron Baker shot 70 percent, Tekele Cotton grabbed 10 rebounds, and all five starters scored in double figures on the road against one of the best defensive teams in the nation, it was clear that this years iteration of Shocker basketball would do more than just squeeze out an at-large bid. 

In a way, 2013-2014 Wichita State is just continuing their run from last year. For most of last season they were not healthy, which is why they lost twice to Evansville and once to Southern Illinois in early 2013. Since March 9th, 2013, however, this team is 24-2 with wins against Pitt, Gonzaga, Ohio State, St. Louis, Tennessee, and BYU (none of which came on their home floor). It should be no surprise then that they're 18-0. Unfortunately for the Shockers, the selection committee doesn't care what you did last season. So now we have to ask two important questions. A) Will the Shockers go undefeated? B) What kind of seed should they expect on Selection Sunday?

• Will the Shockers go undefeated?
  

All the statistical models argue that the chances of this happening for any team, regardless of margin of victory or conference affiliation are slim. After all, even the best teams in America are bound to slip up once or twice a season against teams they should beat (see Kansas at TCU last year). Correspondingly, RPIforecast.com (which combines current results with Jeff Sagarrin's predictor forecasts WSU to end up at 28-2. The ever brilliant Ken Pomeroy forecasts the same record. That being said, I feel pretty strongly that if the Shockers are still unbeaten after February 8th, they will finish the regular season that way. Check out their schedule (and corresponding RPI rank before and after February 8th:

Before 2/8
Indiana St (61)
@Illinois St (114)
@Drake (147)
Loyola-Chicago (287)
Evansville (225)
@Indiana St (61)
@Northern Iowa (82)

After 2/8
Southern Illinois (285)
@Evansville (225)
@Loyola-Chicago (287) 
Drake (147)
@Bradley (226)
Missouri St (69)
MVC Tourney Quarters (RPI 200+)
MVC Semis (RPI 100+)
MVC Finals (RPI 50-100)

Of their next seven games, three are against RPI top 100 teams and only two are against teams with losing records. Of the five games against teams with winning records, all but one are on the road. Indiana State has already beaten Notre Dame and Belmont and has an outside shot at an at-large bid, while Northern Iowa has already beaten VCU and took Iowa State to overtime. As we saw last week at Missouri State, the Valley sans Creighton is still a very competitive league, and the Shockers are not going to be immune to a loss in league play. However, their final nine games (including the MVC tournament) would feature no true road games against teams ranked in the RPI top 200. The path after early February is a much easier one if the Shockers can stay undefeated through that point.

If I had to throw out a prediction as of today, I think Wichita State ends up 32-1 with one loss at either Indiana State, Illinois State, or Northern Iowa or in the MVC tournament finals. In a way, that could be beneficial for Gregg Marshall's squad going into the tournament. One loss to a top 100 team does little to hurt your profile, and then the pressure of finishing the year undefeated is gone. 

On Sunday I'll recap the critical Wichita State/Indiana State game and take a look at where similar teams ended up seeded in March, so be sure to catch the blog tomorrow!

Mo Creek has been through a lot the past four years. The former Indiana Hoosier started his career as a college freshman with a bang, averaging 16 points a game on a depleted roster before injuring his patella and sitting out the rest of his first season. Creek returned in 2010, leading the Hoosiers to a 6-0 start, only to injure his patella a second time. I don't need to tell you what happened before the start of the 2011 season, except to say that he didn't play a single game. Creek returned healthy last year, but the Hoosiers were so loaded with talent that his role was extremely limited. Taking advantage of an NCAA graduate transfer rule, Creek decided to transfer to George Washington for his final season of eligibility and attend grad school in DC. 

Mike Lonergan has had similar misfortune in the nation's capitol. Despite having solid talent, his squads couldn't quite put it all together, lacking a true go to scorer through last season. To make matters worse, productive three man Lasan Kromah decided to transfer to UConn for this upcoming season. Who would compliment the Colonials best player, talented big man Isaiah Armwood, in his final season? Enter Mo Creek, and the Colonials are a different squad. When GW gets in trouble and needs a bucket, Creek gets the ball.  

Again, it's important to emphasize that the Colonials have had talent for the past couple of years. But would they have beaten Maryland without Creek? Probably not. There's no doubt that Armwood was the man of the hour in GW's biggest win, Creighton, holding All-America Doug McDermott to 2-12 shooting and seven points. But the Blue Jays focused their defensive efforts on Creek, which gave the opportunity for every other starter to score in double figures. 

As we enter the new year, The Colonials are 10-1, have an RPI of 36, and are 2-0 against teams ranked in the top 50. If they aren't in every bracket expert's first projection, they're at least in the discussion. That's where conference affiliation comes into play. Let's be clear about something. Conference affiliation is not one of the allowed criteria when selecting or seeding at large teams. Seth Davis reinforced this last year when he wrote a column for SI after participating in the NCAA's mock selection process for the media:

But as the title of this article suggests, we aren't looking for direct relationships or causality. We're looking for the indirect role that conference affiliation plays on Selection Sunday. Now that the out of conference season is mostly wrapped up, we can get a good idea of which teams will benefit from big chances in league play. In the case of the Colonials, as a mid-major, if they were playing in the America East or the Horizon League, their opportunities for future signature wins would be non-existent. Would a sole neutral court win against Creighton be enough to get them in as an at-large? Doubtful. 

In spite of losing Xavier, Butler, and Charlotte, the A10 is having a pleasantly surprising season as a whole. Not only are UMass, VCU, Dayton, and Saint Louis competing for at-large bids, there are few RPI killers at the bottom of the conference. Playing in the A10 is going to help GW tremendously this year. If we use RPIforecast.com as a predictor for their schedule, the Colonials already have one top 50 win locked up, and will have four more opportunities to get a signature win in conference play (not including the A10 tournament in Brooklyn). Lets assume for a moment that Lonergan's team gets a shot at another top 50 team in Brooklyn, and they win two of their remaining five top 50 games going forward. Let's also predict they keep their bad losses to a minimum (two against sub 100 teams). At 23-9 and 2-3 against the top 50, chances are they'll have their name called on March 17th. Heck, VCU had a similar profile to this scenario last year and got a five seed.

This is not to say that GW is a lock for the tournament, but they're going to have the chance to prove they should be included in a way that, say, Drexel won't.

Quick early update. I've decided on the last four teams in this morning. I feel pretty comfortable that La Salle and Tennessee are safe. La Salle's three wins against the field are all solid, and one was away from home. They had a decent number of top 100 wins, minimal bad losses, and accomplished something in the out of conference slate against Villanova. Tennessee stuggled away from home, but there are too many quality wins to leave them out. I went with Kentucky as my second to last team in based on the number of quality wins, a decent neutral court win against Maryland, and few bad losses. I gave the last spot to UMass over St. Mary's, Middle Tennessee State and Ole Miss because they racked up nine top 100 wins, had two wins against the field, were 12-7 away from home and had several top 100 out of conference wins. I think Ole Miss is out if they lose today. They had three awful losses, a HORRIBLE out of conference showing, and their best wins are against teams barely in the field. If they win today, they'll bump UMass out of the field. I'll give it one more look in the afternoon and release the final bracket around 5pm Eastern.

Last night was insane. A lot of the teams on the bubble shifted around after some shocking wins and confounding losses. I feel pretty strongly that 34 of the 37 at-large bids are locked up, with three left spots up for grabs. Kentucky, La Salle, St. Mary's, Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State, Ole Miss, Maryland, UMass and Baylor are the teams vying for those last spots as long as there are no bid thieves. Lets quickly run through them all.

1. Maryland had a huge win against Duke last night, but they are still just 4-9 vs the top 100 and their best out of conference win was against Stony Brook. The are certainly back in the discussion, but I'd say they need to win one more against UNC today before moving into the field.
   
2. Tennessee has done nothing away from home, and their case wasn't helped last night by their loss against Alabama. Still, they at least beat Wichita State in the out of conference slate and have three other wins against the field. That's enough to keep one of the last remaining spots. For now.
3. Kentucky is 4-4 since Nerlens Noel went out with a knee injury. They've beaten Florida and Missouri during that time, but have also lost to Vandy and Georgia. It's tough to say how the selection committee will view this team, but they have multiple quality wins and beat Maryland out of conference. That's more than other teams can say.
4. St. Mary's has racked up a bunch of top 100 wins, but their only win against a team in the NCAA field this season was against Creighton. Their above .500 record against RPI top 100 is enough for the moment, but their spot seems to be the most tenuous of the final teams in.
5. Ole Miss has a gaudy record and several quality wins, but they accomplished absolutely nothing in the out of conference slate. That's a sure fire way to get the cold shoulder from the selection committee. To compensate for that, they'll need to get to the SEC Final at the very least. 
6. UMass got an extremely impressive win against Temple last night in the A10 quarterfinals. They also beat LaSalle earlier in the year and while they don't have a lot of great out of conference wins, they beat several top 100 teams before A10 play started. I still think they need one more to get over the top, however. A win against VCU today would probably get them in the field.
7. Middle Tennessee State was dealt a tough set of cards. They scheduled tough and got a sold win against Ole Miss, but they just don't have a lot to show for it. The Sun Belt is a truly awful conference, so they shouldn't be penalized for that. What's interesting is that their win against Vanderbilt is looking better and better. Even though the Commodores could technically steal a bid from the at-large pool, the Blue Raiders may actually benefit if Vanderbilt wins the SEC tournament. 
8. Baylor will probably get left out. They have some nice wins, but like Maryland they have a very poor record against the RPI top 100 (5-11). If the Terps can't quite get in the field after two Duke wins, Baylor's wins against Kentucky and Kansas won't quite do it, either. Perhaps if they had beaten Oklahoma State in the Big 12 tournament this would be a different story, but that didn't happen.
9. La Salle may only have three quality wins (Butler, @VCU, Villanova), but they were solid enough against the top 100 and have one good win in the out of conference slate, something many of the bubble teams don't have. They were also 8-7 away from home, which is another notch to their already decent resume. I'd be surprised to see the Explorers get left out.

Sticking with Thursday afternoon's theme, we'll quickly roll through the results from last night and how they impacted the bracket. There were several seeding changes, but we'll stick to the top story lines. Things are moving really fast, so try to keep up!


  Cal will still make the tournament

• Jarred DuBois broke the spirit of the Golden Bears last night when he hit a late three to tie the game for the Utes of Utah. After the game went to overtime, Cal had nothing left in the tank and gave up 20 (!) points in the extra session. Utah has done this from time to time this season, having already upset Boise State, Colorado, and Oregon. This is still a bad loss, though. While it will certainly drop the Golden Bears a seed line or two, they will be in the tournament. Their good wins are far too impressive to even think about leaving them out. They can do damage in the tournament, but they're going to have to get point production from players not named than Allen Crabbe and Justin Cobbs. 
  

                                                       Iowa could snag the last at-large

• Don't look now, but the Hawkeyes resume is starting to look legit. They own wins over Iowa State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois and have just two bad losses to Purdue and Northwestern. The problem for Iowa is that they have done nothing away from home this season. That can change on Friday, however. If they can pull off an upset on a neutral court against Michigan State, the selection committee will have to seriously consider this team for an at-large. In order to beat Sparty, they need to get to the free throw line, which is one of their biggest strengths. This is especially true for Roy Devyn Marble. Also, they need to limit their threes. When they take a lot against good teams, they tend to struggle mightily. We'll learn a lot about this team by the end of the day.
  

                                  Hoyas and Cardinals in a dead heat for the final 1 seed

• Both clubs are rolling right now and were able to win impressively in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Georgetown has flourished since they started running their offense through Otto Porter (who totally deserves the national player of the year award, by the way). Louisville has improved dramatically on the offensive end of late, and as a result they've won eight in a row. The real story has been their defense, however. They Cardinals haven't given up more than 61 points since their five overtime loss to Notre Dame. They've been forcing turnovers at an incredible rate lately, and their half-court defense is collectively approaching lock down status. If both teams get to the finals, the winner on Saturday night will almost certainly get the last remaining one seed. 
  

      We're really rolling now. The Big East Tournament is halfway complete and the Pac 12, Mountain West, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC are well underway. Lets go through some rather quick bullet points to summarize the Thursday matinees and how they effect the teams that are in or can still make the tournament. A similar update will come in a few hours after most of the night games are done. 


                                               Cuse stops their slide, but is depth an issue?

• James Southerland was clutch this afternoon. He led the Orange over Pittsburgh, but the production was well distributed among the starting five. This was important, because the selection committee had to wonder if Syracuse was running out of gas late in the season. Getting a win against a very good Pitt squad on a neutral court will stop their slide in terms of seeding. Remember, they were in the running for a 2 seed just a few weeks ago, and had fallen to a 6. Their win today flips their seeding with the Panthers, moving the Orange to a 5 while Pitt falls to a 6. One has to question the depth of the Syracuse, however. Nearly all minutes and production came from six players, and that's a huge red flag when you might have to play five games in eight days. Keep an eye on their level of play against Georgetown on Friday. If they start to get tired early, it's a sign they could be in trouble next weekend.
  

                                                                  Cyclones are a lock

• Back in February when Kansas was slumping and Elijah Johnson was hurting the Jayhawks, I suggested he stop taking so many shots and help the team in other ways. Johnson should take notes from Iowa State's Korie Lucious. Lucious was ice cold from the field, but he had a remarkable nine assists while committing just two turnovers. Make no mistake about it, Melvin Ejim wouldn't have scored so much without him, especially as the Cyclones closed in on Oklahoma, who led most of the game until late. Thanks to their comeback today, Iowa State is now a lock for the tournament and will likely stay out of the First Four in Dayton. Oklahoma now moves to the bubble after a confounding loss to TCU last week and their collapse today. More to come on the Sooners later this weekend, but their situation has become very tenuous very quickly. 
  

                                                                The Vols hold serve

• It's no wonder Tennessee is a bubble team. They're talented and full of energy, but they play extremely hard headed at times. With the exception of Trae Golden, they took and missed way too many threes this afternoon, but played wonderfully on defense and were able to come out with a critical win. Why is the win over the Bulldogs so big? Make no mistake about it, a bubble team is going to have an awful loss this weekend. Since the Vols are fighting for the last bid, winning a game they're supposed to win is almost like moving up. They can really improve their standing with a win against Alabama on Friday afternoon. Cuonzo Martin's group has yet to do anything away from Knoxville, and a top 100 win on a neutral court would make an impression on the selection committee.