NCAA week 6

Championship week edition
1) Kentucky (12-1)

2) Ohio State (12-6)

3) Kansas (13-5)
4) North Carolina (14-4)
5) Michigan State (12-7)

6) Syracuse (17-1)
7) Wichita State (8-3-2)
8) Missouri (11-3-1)
9) Wisconsin (10-6-2)
10) Indiana (11-5-2)

11) Duke (15-5)
12) Memphis (9-6-2)

13) Georgetown (8-7)
14) Marquette (10-5-1)
15) Baylor (11-6)
16) St Louis (7-4-2)
17) New Mexico (8-4-2)

18) Florida (5-7-2) (Predictably faded some already)
19) Belmont (4-4-3) Generally they are up this high because they are a very high scoring team and lost to Duke by one on the road. I think they're dangerous if they get a decent seed for a round or two, but they probably won't get a decent seed. RPI has them around 60 and I think they're really around the 30s. Anything above a 12 seed (13+) is too high to make some noise and they probably will get something like that.
20) Kansas State (7-7-2) As a notable point, all three of these teams have losing records.

21) California (9-6-2)
22) Vanderbilt (10-8-2)
23) Michigan (13-6-2)
24) UNLV (9-6-1)
25) Florida State (10-8-1)

Creighton (7-4-1) is just behind FSU. They will probably get a decent seeding and they will probably be dangerous.
Teams that got in (outside).
37) Murray State (4-0-1). Not sure they are nearly as good as advertised, but they can make some noise. The 18-45 range is very tightly packed together.

Teams that lost in weak conferences
45) Iona  (3-2-5) Has a shot at getting in still. Decent RPI, good road record, couple of decent wins (Denver, who may end up winning the Sun Belt (64), and St Joes, both in OT, plus the bracketbuster win over Nevada), and a close loss in an early tournament to Purdue. They also lost to the second best team in their conference. I don't expect them to get in, but they are probably better than most of the bubble teams.
51) Middle Tennessee State (3-3-3). Split with Belmont, crushed UCLA in LA, and Akron at home. Lost to Vanderbilt and Denver on the road. Probably not getting in and isn't much better than most of the bubble.

I suspect both Drexel (49) and VCU (46) are safe, and obviously St Mary's (34) and Gonzaga (27) are both safe as far as the major title games tonight.

Davidson (52) probably needs to win tonight as they have a very thin resume. 1-4-3, but the '1' was Kansas on the road and they were close with Vandy, but got blown out by Duke and Wichita. Wichita was at home.


NEC final is irrelevant without Wagner in it, as is the Horizon without Cleveland State. And MAAC final without Iona is likewise. All of those are future 15 or 16 seeds and thus cannon fodder. Committee does usually quite well at identifying the weakest teams nowadays (since the Richmond/Santa Clara days that is) and these are all weak teams. RPI helped at least that much.

Bubble right now has around 10-11 open spots. San Diego State (52) (8-4-2) is safe but overrated heavily and Southern Mississippi (58) (6-4-3) is probably okay so that means 9 of these teams have a shot at getting in, baring any major upsets in this week's tournaments. To me, the fact that 9 of these teams have a shot at getting in suggests we are taking too many teams. I would take maybe 3 of them (Texas, UConn, Iona, and maybe Washington). The rest is just ugly. Personally I will root for several upsets rather than take more of these teams.
29) Texas (5-11-1). Most of their losses are close and on the road. I wouldn't be confident they are in but they have a better claim than most of the rivals beneath them based on the eyeball of being competitive in competitive games. Need to get a couple wins in their conference tournament if possible to be safe. At worst need to avoid early round loss.
43) Connecticut (9-9-3). Safely in, but not making it easy. 
44) Miami (FL) (5-9-2). Ugly. Does have marquee win at Duke. Might get in on that alone.
45) Iona
47) Arizona (6-8-2). Losing to Arizona State, even on the road, is not the best way to end the regular season.
48) North Carolina State (6-10-1). Meh
50) South Dakota State (3-2-5) I think Oral Roberts (71) is probably safe as long as they make to the conference final. I'm not sure about these guys. Blowout win over Washington on the road is about it.
51) MTSU
54) Northwestern (5-12). No bad losses helps, but there's an awful lot of them.
55) Stanford  (6-7-3). Not in.
56) Seton Hall (8-8-3). Blown out by DePaul in regular season finale, ouch.
57) Washington (9-8-1). Probably in.
60) Oregon (6-7-1). Decent shot, but pretty low on the totem pole still.
61) LaSalle (5-6-5). No way.
62) Minnesota (6-11-2). No way.
63) St Joesphs. (7-8-4). No way.
64) Xavier (6-10-1). No idea why this team was ranked at one point, much less in the top 10.
66) Mississippi State (5-5-5). I only have them on my list because everyone else does.
70) South Florida (6-9-3) Cupcake Big East schedule is about the only reason they've gotten attention.
80) Colorado State  (6-8-2). Only have them on the list because they still have an insane RPI (21).