Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Bubble Banter: Missouri’s chances to earn an at-large bid slipping away

Marshall Henderson

AP

There are 36 days left until Selection Sunday. Every morning from now until the bracket comes out, we’ll help you get caught up on the happenings with impact on the bubble from the night before.

You can see NBCSports.com’s latest bracket here.

Who is the third-best team in the SEC right now?

You don’t know, do you? I don’t really know either, but I know that it has to be one of four teams -- Tennessee, LSU, Missouri or Ole Miss. Two of them squared off against each other on Saturday, with Ole Miss (RPI: 56, KenPom: 70) riding a big first half and eight threes from Marshall Henderson to knock off the Tigers.

And, potentially, to book Missouri‘s (RPI: 46, KenPom: 47) ticket to the NIT?

The Tigers are currently in a bad spot thanks to the perils of non-round robin league schedules. Missouri only plays Kentucky, Florida, LSU and Ole Miss once each this season. They’ve lost three in a row and four of their last six, and those four losses just so happen to be their games against those four teams.

What that means is that the Tigers are now in a situation where their tournament resume is more or less built upon a win over UCLA at home, and it’s not going to get all that much better. Missouri plays Tennessee twice in their last seven games, but if the Vols are on the brink of falling outside the RPI top 50. If that happens, it means that the rest of Missouri’s schedules contains no top 50 opponents and four sub-100 opponents.

In other words, their resume isn’t getting much better. And they don’t exactly look like a tournament team as of today.

As far as the Rebels are concerned, they still have work to do. They’re the seventh team out of the tournament, according to our most recent bracket, but the good news is they still have games against Kentucky and Florida. Win one or both of those games and avoid a bad loss, and Andy Kennedy could end up dancing again.

THE REST OF WEDNESDAY’S BUBBLE ACTION:

Winners:


  • SMU (RPI: 47, KenPom: 26) put themselves into terrific position to earn an at-large bid with a blowout win over Cincinnati. They haven’t done much on the road and they only have four top 100 wins, but they’ve beaten Cincinnati, UConn and Memphis. That’s better than a lot of fellow bubble teams.
  • Kansas State (RPI: 38, KenPom: 35) has November losses to Charlotte and Northern Colorado that drag down the Wildcats’ resume, but a 17-point win over Texas is now their fifth top 30 win. This team is barely on the bubble at this point.
  • Maryland (RPI: 79, KenPom: 59) The Terps have a lot of ground to make up to get back into the conversation, but they’ll have plenty of chances: two games against Virginia, at Duke, Syracuse. Today, they picked up their second top 50 win against Florida State.
  • Xavier (RPI: 49, KenPom: 42) picked up a win it really needed against Providence on Saturday. It’s their third top 50 win, it snaps a three-game losing streak and it helps nullify ugly losses to USC and Seton Hall.
  • Arizona State (RPI: 39, KenPom: 32) The Sun Devils picked up their second top 50 win of the season, blowing a 20 point lead but hanging on to knock off Oregon.
  • Saint Joseph’s (RPI: 52, KenPom: 83) had a huge three-game homestand and picked up two wins, beating both UMass last Saturday and VCU this Saturday. They are easily the two best wins of the year for Phil Martelli’s team.
  • Minnesota (RPI: 41, KenPom: 40) had lost three in a row, four of five and five of seven. Saturday’s win over Indiana was essential to stop the bleeding more than anything. They’re probably still on the right ride of the bubble as of today.

Losers:


  • Pitt (RPI: 23, KenPom: 13) is a loser on this list because their second straight overtime game against an ACC cellar-dweller has started questions about their lack of any substance on their resume.
  • Gonzaga (RPI: 23, KenPom: 27) has played their way into a position where they may want to avoid testing the at-large pools. The Zags best win this season is ... BYU. And after blowing a lead at Memphis on Saturday, that’s not going to change. They’re looking at a situation where they could head into Selection Sunday with more sub-150 loss than top 50 wins. That’s bad news.
  • Florida State (RPI: 43, KenPom: 30) has two top 25 wins and five top 100 wins, but they got smacked around by Maryland, which is their worst loss of the season, according to the RPI.
  • Providence (RPI: 50, KenPom: 53) The Friars shot into bubble contention after winning five in a row and beating Creighton and Xavier, but they’ve lost three of their last four, including today’s six-point loss at Xavier.
  • West Virginia (RPI: 68, KenPom: 60) lost at Kansas on Saturday. The Mountaineers have a lot of work left to do, but they’re still in the conference.
  • Oregon (RPI: 40, KenPom: 33) has now lost eight of their last 10 games. The last five losses have come by a combined 12 points. Their best win? BYU. That’s not a good thing.
  • Baylor (RPI: 54, KenPom: 56) just does not want to go dancing. Their wins over Oklahoma State, Colorado and Kentucky will keep them relevant, but they’ve lost eight of their last ten games.
  • Indiana (RPI: 70, KenPom: 57) has now lost four of their last six games after dropping a game at Minnesota on Saturday. That’s not an awful loss, but it digs the Hoosiers into a deeper hole. They have four more top 50 RPI opponents on their schedule, and with wins over Michigan and Wisconsin already, a bid is still possible.