NCAA Tournament 2024: Stock Watch for Bubble Teams with February Approaching

Welcome to the bubble for the 2024 men's NCAA tournament, otherwise known as 'Whose Bid Is It Anyway?' where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

That's a joke, of course. The points absolutely do matter to the efficiency metrics, and the results are even more crucial. But with January about to flip to February, the current state of the bubble could be best summarized as complete chaos.

By the end of the season, the bubble will shrink to something like 12 teams fighting for three spots. Right now, though, even the No. 7 seeds are looking bubble-y, and there are plenty of teams not currently projected to dance by anyone—i.e. Florida State, Iowa, UCF, etc.—who could play their way into the mix in a hurry.

So let's take a look at which bubble teams have done the most climbing and falling over the past three weeks.

We're not going to talk about every single team currently on the bubble. It's more like 20 percent of them.

Most notable among the omissions are Cincinnati and Providence, who are among the "last four in" or "first four out" for seemingly everyone right now. That hasn't really changed from three weeks ago, though. They've each ebbed and flowed since Jan. 10, but the net result is virtually no change.

We're more interested in the movers and shakers whose case for a bid has changed considerably over the course of the past three weeks.

Teams are presented in no particular order, outside of oscillating between Stock Up and Stock Down.

NET and RES/QUAL metrics are current through the start of play on Tuesday, Jan. 30, and are courtesy of BartTorvik.

Current Resume: 16-6, NET: 21, RES: 64.0, QUAL: 24.5, 3-1 vs. Q1, 2-3 vs. Q2, 2-2 vs. Q3, 8-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: at San Francisco, at Santa Clara, vs. Loyola Marymount, vs. Portland, vs. Pacific

Losses Since Jan. 10: N/A

Two months ago, Saint Mary's was as good as dead from an at-large perspective.

The Gaels started out 3-5 with a bad home loss to Weber State, a pair of neutral-site blowout losses at the hands of San Diego State and Xavier and losses to Utah and Boise State that didn't seem nearly as forgivable then as they do now. They did have a nice home win over New Mexico, but that couldn't make up for all the Ls.

Considering there aren't many quality wins to be found in West Coast Conference play, it seemed like the Gaels would need to be just about perfect from that point forward to find their way back into the at-large mix.

Thirteen wins in 14 games later, welcome back to the conversation, Saint Mary's.

Not only are Randy Bennett's guys stacking up win after win, but they got two great road wins over Colorado State and San Francisco, plus quite a few merciless blowouts to help out the ol' predictive metrics.

Saint Mary's was outside the top 60 on KenPom and not even top-80 in the NET in mid-December, but wins by 20, 24, 36, 37, 43 and 48 have improved those marks drastically.

The resume metrics are still not great, but playing at Gonzaga on Saturday could change that in a big way.

Current Resume: 15-5, NET: 67, RES: 36.5, QUAL: 63.5, 2-2 vs. Q1, 4-2 vs. Q2, 4-1 vs. Q3, 5-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. UTSA (OT), at Wichita State

Losses Since Jan. 10: vs. South Florida, at Tulane, at UAB

Memphis' resume has tanked to an absurd degree over the past two weeks.

Prior to hosting South Florida on Jan. 18, the Tigers were 15-2 with nothing close to a bad loss. Though they were lacking for particularly great wins, they did have a lot of good ones, winning seven games against major-conference foes, including a road win over Texas A&M and a home win over Clemson—both of which looked better two weeks ago than they do now.

Because of that clean resume loaded with Q2 wins, Memphis was looking like, at worst, a high No. 4 seed, arguably even a low No. 2 seed.

But after three consecutive losses to teams outside the NET Top 100, that ship has sailed into a rocky coastline.

Memphis' resume metrics are still reasonably solid, but no longer even remotely in the "you can't possibly leave this team out of the tournament" range they were in three games ago. In fact, there's one team (Syracuse) with even better resume metrics than Memphis (29.0) that currently isn't projected to dance.

If you just swooped in for the first time, had no idea how comfortably in the projected field Memphis was less than two weeks ago and analyzed that resume today, you easily could come to the conclusion it doesn't belong in the bracket.

Most do still have Memphis in, but it's getting dicey. And the Tigers have two games left against Florida Atlantic, as well as road games against North Texas and SMU.

Win two of those four and avoid suffering any other bad losses and they're probably fine. But Memphis' situation got bubble-y in a hurry.

Current Resume: 15-6, NET: 41, RES: 49.5, QUAL: 51.0, 2-3 vs. Q1, 4-2 vs. Q2, 1-1 vs. Q3, 8-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Arizona, vs. Utah, vs. Colorado, at Stanford, at USC

Losses Since Jan. 10: at California

Suffering the loss at California was less than ideal. That is a Q2 result barely above the Q3 threshold, where Washington State already has a neutral-court loss to Santa Clara weighing things down.

Even with that gaffe on the ledger, though, what an impressive run it has been for the Cougars.

Three weeks ago, Washington State had a solid neutral-site victory over Boise State and a whole lot of nothing else. That was its only win against Q1 or Q2.

All of a sudden, the Cougars have six such wins, including the colossal upset of Arizona.

In each of their past six games, Myles Rice, Isaac Jones and Jaylen Wells have all scored in double figures, which wasn't the case for the first two months. It happened just once in their first 14 games, in a comfortable win over Grambling State. But now that the full trio is showing up on a reliable basis, Washington State at least looks the part of a tournament team.

Can the Cougars do enough down the stretch to secure a bid, though?

They have a massive road game against Arizona in late February, as well as a pair of borderline Q1 road games against Washington and Oregon in the next two weeks. But that's it. And for a team smack dab on the bubble, that is not a whole lot of opportunity to prove anything.

At least they're on the bubble now, though. They weren't even on the radar in early January.

Grand Canyon's Resume: 19-2,NET: 46, RES: 38.0, QUAL: 62.5, 1-1 vs. Q1, 2-1 vs. Q2, 4-0 vs. Q3, 11-0 vs. Q4

James Madison's Resume: 18-3, NET: 66, RES: 71.5, QUAL: 64.5, 1-0 vs. Q1, 1-1 vs. Q2, 2-2 vs. Q3, 13-0 vs. Q4

Princeton's Resume: 15-2, NET: 42, RES: 43.5, QUAL: 59.5, 0-0 vs. Q1, 2-2 vs. Q2, 6-0 vs. Q3, 5-0 vs. Q4

The Losses: Grand Canyon @ Seattle, Princeton @ Cornell, JMU swept by Appalachian State

The unfortunate reality for teams seeking an at-large bid while playing in traditional one-bid leagues is that the entire conference season is a death-defying tightrope walk.

Murray State was able to get a No. 6 seed two years ago, but only because it went a perfect 20-0 against Ohio Valley foes. Similar story for 2019 Wofford, getting a No. 7 seed after winning each and every one of its 21 games against the SoCon.

Even if those two teams had won every league game up until the conference championship, a loss in that game—even against the second-best team in the conference—might have been enough to knock them into the NIT.

So while we're not completely throwing in the towel on the WAC's Grand Canyon, the Sun Belt's James Madison or the Ivy League's Princeton after failing to even make it through January without suffering a conference loss, it is now an uphill, possibly unwinnable battle.

Of the trio, JMU is undeniably in the worst shape. The Dukes have that phenomenal season-opening win at Michigan State. But in addition to getting swept by Appalachian State in the past few weeks, the Dukes took a bad loss at Southern Miss earlier in the month—the type of loss that can effectively erase a road win over Michigan State. JMU could win every remaining game until losing to App State for a third time in the Sun Belt championship, and it would still be highly unlikely to reach the NCAA tournament.

Princeton isn't in much better shape, as the Tigers don't have anything close to the quality win JMU has. They won a bunch of road games in nonconference play, but didn't even face a Q1 opponent, let alone beat one. It's almost impossible to envision a path to an at-large bid for them at this point.

GCU still has a tangible at-large pulse, though.

The loss at Seattle wasn't terrible, the prior loss to South Carolina was even less problematic and the 'Lopes have a nice collection of wins over San Diego State, San Francisco, Louisiana Tech and Liberty. Even so, they plummeted from "looking like a single-digit seed" to "No. 12 seed that cannot afford to suffer another loss before the conference tournament" territory.

Current Resume: 19-2, NET: 62, RES: 57.5, QUAL: 68.5, 0-0 vs. Q1, 3-2 vs. Q2, 2-0 vs. Q3, 10-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, at Incarnate Word, vs. Lamar, vs. Southeastern Louisiana, vs. New Orleans, vs. Northwestern State

Losses Since Jan. 10: N/A

Three cheers to McNeese State for thus far doing what Grand Canyon, James Madison and Princeton could not.

Not only are the Cowboys a perfect 8-0 in Southland Conference play, but they also have a 14-game winning streak dating back to Thanksgiving.

With nary a game played against Q1 and a conference schedule where just about every game is a potential Q4 landmine, the case for a McNeese State at-large bid is flimsy at best.

The Cowboys did win at Michigan, at VCU and at UAB, though, and each by a double-digit margin. That's not nothing.

And if they win out to reach the Southland Conference tournament with a 29-2 record, that's not nothing, either.

In fact, if that happens and the Cowboys were left out after losing in that conference tourney, it would be the highest winning percentage ever snubbed from the dance, and the first three-loss (or fewer) team to miss the cut since 2004 Utah State was left in the lurch at 25-3. [Excluding Navy going 15-3 in the truncated 2020-21 season.]

So, just keep winning?

Force the selection committee to look you in the eye and say that some TBD 17-win team from the Big 12 is more deserving of a bid than your 29-plus win campaign?

McNeese isn't particularly in the at-large mix yet, but it becomes a more intriguing debate with each passing week that it doesn't suffer a loss—even though its resume metrics get a little bit uglier with each Q4 win in the Southland.

Current Resume: 15-6, NET: 59, RES: 32.0, QUAL: 58.5, 3-3 vs. Q1, 2-3 vs. Q2, 3-0 vs. Q3, 7-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Northwestern, vs. Ohio State

Losses Since Jan. 10: at Iowa, at Maryland, at Rutgers

Notice a theme in those wins and losses?

Nebraska takes care of business at home and doesn't win on the road.

That isn't 100 percent true on either side of the fence. The Cornhuskers did win convincingly at Kansas State back in mid-December, two weeks after getting completely annihilated at home by Creighton. But they are 13-1 at home and 1-5 on the road, plus a neutral-site victory over Oregon State.

It's not just that Nebraska loses on the road, though.

It's that the Cornhuskers usually don't even bother to put up a fight.

They did at least force overtime at Rutgers, blowing a late 11-point lead en route to losing that one. But they lost by 11 at Minnesota, by 16 at Wisconsin, by 18 at Iowa and most recently by 22 at Maryland.

That is how you wind up with questionable predictive metrics in spite of a 16-point home win over Purdue and a quality victory over Michigan State.

Right after that Jan. 9 win over Purdue, Nebraska's resume looked solid—a No. 9 seed, at worst.

But after losses in three out of five games, the 'Huskers are right back on the bubble.

A home win over projected No. 2 seed Wisconsin on Thursday would be huge. But if they go 4-5 after that—winning every home game (Michigan, Penn State, Minnesota and Rutgers) and losing every road game (Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Ohio State and Michigan)—that probably wouldn't be enough to dance.

Current Resume: 18-3, NET: 15, RES: 24.0, QUAL: 27.5, 2-2 vs. Q1, 1-1 vs. Q2, 7-0 vs. Q3, 7-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Utah State, vs. San Diego State, vs. Nevada, at Air Force, at San Jose State

Losses Since Jan. 10: N/A

Speaking of teams dominating at home, there are not many home-court advantages greater than what New Mexico has with The Pit.

Not only are the Lobos a perfect 11-0 at home this season, but most of those victories have come in blowout fashion. They beat Nevada by 34 the other night, this after topping Utah State by 13 and San Diego State by 18.

Now, fresh off our discussion about Nebraska's resume, let's reiterate that home wins can only take you so far.

There's a reason three-loss New Mexico remains somewhat on the bubble despite its dominance at The Pit and despite its great metrics.

Prior to the recent three great home wins, this resume was a mess. Based on current NET rankings, the Lobos were winless against both Q1 and Q2, 5-0 against Q3 and 7-0 against Q4.

New Mexico does at least have seven wins away from home, but none of them are of any particular value. It will probably need to win at least one of the four remaining road games against Nevada, San Diego State, Boise State and Utah State, both to prove it can beat a quality opponent away from home and simply to avoid picking up a bunch of losses down the stretch.

But while there's still work to be done, there's no question whatsoever that New Mexico is in better shape now than it was three weeks ago.

Current Resume: 16-5, NET: 63, RES: 64.5, QUAL: 67.5, 2-3 vs. Q1, 1-1 vs. Q2, 5-1 vs. Q3, 7-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Colorado State

Losses Since Jan. 10: at New Mexico, at Wyoming, at San Diego State. vs. Boise State

The good news for Nevada is that at least its lone win in the past three weeks was a solid one. Even though Colorado State has fallen down the seed list in its own right, that was easily one of the Wolf Pack's three best wins of the year.

Any time "lone win in the past three weeks" can be used to describe your team, though, things have gone off the rails.

The road losses to New Mexico and San Diego State were missed opportunities for great wins.

The home loss to Boise State was a misstep, though not the end of the world.

But losing at Wyoming was the resume-destroying disaster for Nevada.

The Wolf Pack started out 15-1, but it was a hollow 15-1. They had a nice win over TCU in Hawai'i, a respectable road win over Washington and that's about it. That left them needing to either reinforce their resume with a handful of wins against the Mountain West's other five tournament hopefuls or make sure to avoid suffering any losses against the bottom five teams in the league.

Thus far? One solid home win and one bad road loss, knocking them out of the projected field for the time being.

Current Resume: 15-5, NET: 70, RES: 48.5, QUAL: 77.5, 1-2 vs. Q1, 5-2 vs. Q2, 2-1 vs. Q3, 7-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Dayton, at Duquesne, at Davidson, vs. George Mason, vs. George Washington

Losses Since Jan. 10: N/A

Since an uninspiring 5-5 start to the season, Richmond has turned a serious corner, winning 10 consecutive games.

The Spiders stockpiled a bunch of Q2 wins in the first three weeks of January, but they needed a big one to convince the metrics that they might be for real and to make a legitimate push into the at-large conversation.

And they got it Saturday night in a victory over Dayton.

By some miracle, they totally shut down DaRon Holmes II. The Flyers big man had averaged 22.9 points in the previous 10 games, but he had just nine points against Richmond, settling for three-point attempts like never before and battling foul trouble. It may well be his worst game of the entire season, and the Spiders took advantage of it with a Q1 win.

The NET and the predictive metrics still aren't buying Richmond, largely because each of its past six wins have come by eight points or fewer. But getting wins is more important than style points, and the Spiders have climbed their way into the top 50 in the resume metrics.

Because they are now in sole possession of first place in the A-10, quite a few bracketologists have the Spiders as the league's projected auto bid, the vast majority of them penciling Richmond in for a No. 12 seed. But it'd be fun to know where they would put the Spiders in the at-large conversation. We have them as our fifth team out, and a road win over VCU on Saturday would potentially be enough to move them into the field.

Sure would be cool if it ends up that a win over Dayton was the reason Richmond makes it to Dayton for the play-in games.

Current Resume: 14-7, NET: 36, RES: 37.0, QUAL: 42.5, 3-5 vs. Q1, 3-2 vs. Q2, 2-0 vs. Q3, 6-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Oregon, vs. Oregon State, vs. UCLA

Losses Since Jan. 10: at Stanford, at Washington, at Washington State

In the Big 12, if you go undefeated at home and winless on the road, there's a great chance you'll make the NCAA tournament, as there are just so many quality wins to be found.

Taking that approach in the Pac-12, however, is liable to leave Utah nowhere close to the at-large conversation six weeks from now.

In addition to the six games listed above, Utah also won at home against Washington and Washington State and lost to Arizona and Arizona State. That translates to one loss to a definite tournament team (Arizona), a 2-1 record against bubble teams (Oregon and Washington State) and a 3-3 record against teams with no realistic hope of dancing.

The good news for the Utes is they entered league play in great shape. They went 9-2 with solid wins over BYU (home), Saint Mary's (road) and Wake Forest (neutral) and "no big deal" losses to Houston and St. John's on a neutral court. After those first two wins over the Washington schools, they were up to No. 17 overall (top No. 5 seed) in our Jan. 2 projection of the field.

But five January losses with no particularly good wins added have left the Utes tumbling toward the bubble.

The current state of injuries does bear mentioning. Rollie Worster suffered a leg injury Jan. 11 against UCLA and has missed the past five games. Lawson Lovering hurt his ankle early in the Jan. 14 game against Stanford and hasn't played since. Deivon Smith also left the Washington State game early with an injury, though he was back three days later against Washington.

Still, those losses count.

If they can continue to protect home court in the next 10 days against Colorado and Arizona, that would be huge. But if they turn around and lose at USC, UCLA and Colorado in mid-February and at Oregon State and Oregon at the end of the regular season, they probably aren't getting in.

As much as conference record isn't supposed to matter to the selection committee, going 10-10 against this Pac-12 would not go over well in those conversations.

Current Resume: 18-3, NET: 49, RES: 20.5, QUAL: 59.0, 4-2 vs. Q1, 3-0 vs. Q2, 2-1 vs. Q3, 9-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: at Tennessee, vs. Kentucky, at Arkansas, at Missouri, vs. Missouri

Losses Since Jan. 10: vs. Georgia

Following Tuesday night's road win over Tennessee, it'd be preposterous to suggest South Carolina is on the bubble any longer. Not only was that the Gamecocks' best win of the season, but it just might be the best win any team has gotten in this entire season.

And, to be clear, they were already somewhat safely in the field before that game.

South Carolina fans were outraged on Monday that their team still hadn't made its way into the AP Top 25, but the Gamecocks were a consensus No. 8 seed in Monday night's Bracket Matrix refresh.

That win over the Volunteers should push them to at least a consensus No. 6 seed, if not a No. 5 seed.

A couple weeks ago, though, they were a good bit bubbly.

The 14-3 record looked nice and all, but a road win over Grand Canyon and a home win over Mississippi State was all they had accomplished. They needed a marquee win in order to feel good about a bid, and they got two of them, knocking off both Kentucky and Tennessee in the span of eight days.

Of note: The NET, RES and QUAL marks above do not include Tuesday's win over Tennessee. All three are certain to improve to some extent Wednesday morning.

Current Resume: 11-10, NET: 43, RES: 62.5, QUAL: 36.5, 3-6 vs. Q1, 2-1 vs. Q2, 2-3 vs. Q3, 4-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. DePaul

Losses Since Jan. 10: at Butler, at St. John's, vs. Marquette, at Marquette, vs. Connecticut

There are a handful of examples of teams that have received an at-large bid despite suffering 10 losses before the end of January, including 2010-11 USC just making the cut in the first year with the field expanded from 65 to 68 teams.

But let's just say it doesn't bode well for Villanova.

It's hard to believe it has gotten to this point for the Wildcats, who started out 6-1 with solid wins over North Carolina, Texas Tech, Memphis and Maryland. They felt like a title contender after winning the Battle 4 Atlantis, and later backed it up with a great road win over Creighton.

But between the three Q3 losses suffered within the first four weeks of the regular season and the current five-game losing streak dropping them to just one game above .500, this resume is officially broken, unworthy of a spot in the field.

None of the five recent losses was bad. In fact, they were all Q1 results, several of which came in nail-biting fashion.

It's a sheer volume of losses problem, as well as a fact that the current resume metrics are in the "no one in the NET era has gotten an at-large bid when ranked this poorly" range.

If they can go 7-3 down the stretch, the Wildcats might be fine. That would get them to 18-13 overall in advance of the Big East tournament. And with two games left against Providence, two against Seton Hall, a home game against Creighton and road games against Connecticut and Xavier, they would at least add a few solid wins to the docket.

But "go 7-3" is quite the tall order for a team that has gone 5-9 since Black Friday.

Current Resume: 16-5, NET: 30, RES: 43.5, QUAL: 21.5, 3-4 vs. Q1, 1-1 vs. Q2, 4-0 vs. Q3, 8-0 vs. Q4

Wins Since Jan. 10: vs. Houston, at Baylor, vs. Oklahoma, vs. Texas Tech, at Oklahoma State

Losses Since Jan. 10: at Cincinnati, vs. Iowa State

On the morning of Jan. 10, TCU was 11-3 overall.

The Horned Frogs did not have a Q1 win, nor a Q2 win.

Their most impressive victory was arguably the road win over Georgetown—which isn't a good win at all, and it shouldn't have even counted, as Emanuel Miller clearly stepped out of bounds before banking in his desperation shot at the buzzer.

The only thing TCU had going in its favor was good predictive metrics, suggesting it should eventually get the quality wins it was completely lacking through two months.

Score one for the predictives, though, because TCU has picked up four big wins in short order, playing its way comfortably up the seed list.

In our Jan. 9 projection of the tournament field, the Horned Frogs were out and not particularly close to the conversation. But on Tuesday morning before the home win over Texas Tech, they were up to a consensus No. 8 seed and now look like more of a No. 6 or No. 7 seed.

A word of caution not to go locking the Horned Frogs into the field just yet, though. Beating Houston and winning at Baylor were colossal results, but it didn't change the fact that they did jack squat in nonconference play and that the Big 12 is a meat grinder in which TCU could easily go 4-6 the rest of the way to find its way back to the bubble.

But, for now, the Horned Frogs are in great shape for a bid.