Predicting the Best CBB Teams That Could Crash and Burn to Miss March Madness

By the end of a normal February, teams projected for a No. 10 seed or better in the men's NCAA tournament are practically locks to get in.

In 2018, I had a projected bracket publish Feb. 27. Every team on the top 10 seed lines earned a bid. The following year, all but one of the top 39 teams from my Feb. 25 projection got in. The exception was my No. 36 overall squad, TCU, which went 2-4 in its last six games, including a bad loss, and still got a No. 1 seed in the NIT.

I write that not to toot my own horn but to show that it's highly unusual for a projected single-digit seed to fall out of the field in two weeks' time.

Even St. John's couldn't blow it two years ago. The Red Storm were No. 30 overall (a No. 8 seed) in my final February projection, and they ended the regular season with three consecutive losses (by 33 combined points) to teams that did not make the NCAA tournament and then lost by 32 in the Big East quarterfinals. The Johnnies still squeaked in as the last at-large team.

This year could be different, though.

That St. John's squad entered its woeful finish at 20-8 with five Quadrant 1 wins and no particularly awful losses. But this year's resumes in the projected Nos. 7-10 seed range include 12-6 Florida, 14-10 Maryland and 17-4 San Diego State, the latter of which is 0-3 vs. Quadrant 1.

With so much less information on the resumes than usual, each remaining data point will carry additional weight.

So, which safe-looking teams are still in bubble trouble? These squads are projected for a No. 10 seed* or better (aside from a few lower-seeded mid-majors) that maybe shouldn't book a flight to Indiana for the NCAA tournament just yet.

Projected seeds are based on Wednesday's Bracket Matrix refresh. Beyond the initial mid-majors batch, teams are listed in alphabetical order.

*Xavier was technically a No. 10 seed in the Wednesday refresh, but only by a slim margin. Following Wednesday night's loss to Providence, we are assuming the Musketeers will drop below the consensus No. 10 line by the time this publishes. Though they are not featured here, know that Xavier is in bubble trouble.

Loyola-Chicago Ramblers: Projected No. 8 Seed
San Diego State Aztecs: Projected No. 9 Seed
Boise State Broncos: Projected No. 10 Seed
Drake Bulldogs: Projected No. 11 Seed
Colorado State Rams: Projected No. 12 Seed

The mid-major teams are the lowest-hanging fruits, because they could still acquire a dreadful loss or two.

Loyola-Chicago has home games against NET No. 235 Southern Illinois on Friday and Saturday. While the Ramblers should win both easily, those are Quadrant 4 potential landmines. They will also presumably draw a team outside the NET Top 200 in the MVC quarterfinals and a team outside the NET Top 100 in the MVC semifinals, which would mean three Quadrant 4 games and one Quadrant 3 contest before they can play for a conference championship.

A loss would raise serious questions about this team's bid—even though the Ramblers have been comfortably ranked in the top 20 of both NET and KenPom.com for a few weeks.

Colorado State is in a similar boat, albeit one that is much further away from Lockville than Loyola-Chicago's. The Rams have home games against 5-17 Air Force on Saturday and Monday, followed by a home game against 6-14 New Mexico and a road game against Nevada, which previously swept Boise State. Even though the road game would be an understandable loss, it might cost them a spot in the field.

Drake is in trouble both because of its remaining schedule and its roster situation. The Bulldogs have road games against Bradley on Friday and Saturday, and they likely would have been challenged in at least one of those games at full strength. But with leading scorers Tank Hemphill and Roman Penn both out with a broken foot, a loss is much more likely. And if they lose either game, the selection committee will give extra consideration to whether a less than 100 percent Drake is worthy of a bid.

San Diego State clipped Boise State in overtime on Thursday, and they face each other again Saturday. The Aztecs are probably safe at this point, but lose that game and the subsequent one at UNLV and there will be some concerns. And Boise State will be in major danger if it ends up on the wrong end of another sweep.

Projected Seed: No. 10

Louisville might have the most bizarre resume in the country.

The Cardinals are 0-4 against Quadrant 1, and several of those losses were hideous. They lost by 45 at North Carolina this past weekend, lost by 37 at Wisconsin in mid-December (without star guard Carlik Jones, but still), and their 54-50 loss at Clemson came in the second half of January, when Clemson was handing out blowout wins left and right to everyone but Louisville. That latter game didn't hurt the Cardinals' metrics, but it was a sizable psychological loss.

But Louisville is 7-0 against Quadrant 2, which includes nice home wins over Virginia Tech, Duke, Georgia Tech and Seton Hall.

They also have a bad road loss to Miami, which, because of the lack of marquee victories, hurts Louisville's resume more than the margins of those losses to the Tar Heels and Badgers.

Now for the good/bad news: All three of Louisville's remaining games are Quadrant 1 affairs. The Cardinals are at Duke on Saturday, at Virginia Tech on Wednesday and host Virginia next weekend. Those can improve the resume. But if Louisville continues its winless ways against Quadrant 1, it's likely to miss the tournament.

It's one thing to go winless against Quadrant 1 while just getting one or two chances. But an 0-7 record in those games will not sit well with the selection committee. Just ask 2018-19 Clemson, which finished 35th in the NET and was left out because of its 1-10 record against Quadrant 1.

Projected Seed: No. 8

Three days ago, LSU would not have been on this list.

At the time, it was 28th in the NET with three Quadrant 1 wins, no losses to teams outside Quadrant 1 and just three games remaining. Maybe if they lost all three (at Georgia, at Arkansas, vs. Vanderbilt), they could be in trouble. However, the odds of a team with no bad losses dropping games to both Georgia and Vanderbilt seemed slim.

Following the 91-78 loss to Georgia on Tuesday night, though, the Tigers are in a wee bit o' danger.

Because while they have three Quadrant 1 wins, not one of those results was stupendous. They did beat each of Tennessee (home), Arkansas (home) and Ole Miss (road) by double digits, but those are still bottom-half-of-Quadrant 1 games.

Those wins looked fine when LSU had no questionable losses. If the Tigers blow that Vanderbilt game Tuesday, though, there will be a lot of people wondering what this team accomplished—and they won't be impressed with what they find.

Could LSU lose to Vanderbilt? Absolutely. The Commodores have a pathetic record (6-13; 2-11 in SEC), but in the past month, they are 2-6, with five of the six losses coming by seven points or fewer. That includes close calls at Alabama and Florida. They also put up an impressive fight against Tennessee, trailing by just four with four minutes to go before the Volunteers pulled away.

Head coach Jerry Stackhouse has a little something brewing in Nashville, and his guys could spoil LSU's bid.

Projected Seed: No. 10

At least Maryland is finally winning with some regularity. Its four-game winning streak has brought its record to 14-10—making it much easier to argue that this team belongs in the field.

The Terrapins aren't out of the woods yet, though.

When they entered their six-game closing stretch, I thought they would be fine as long as they went 5-1. They are 3-0 with two home wins over Nebraska and a road victory over Rutgers. That game against the Scarlet Knights on Sunday was easily the biggest hurdle of the six games.

However, they still need to deal with home tilts against Michigan State and Penn State and a road game against Northwestern.

Per KenPom, the Terps should win all three, but they have a win probability of less than 70 percent in each one. There's about a 1-in-4 chance they win all three, but they should only need to take two of them.

If they go 1-2 or 0-3, though, the Terrapins would be in trouble. They have no losses outside Quadrant 1, but based on current metrics, all three of those games will fall into Quadrant 2.

Maryland's road wins over Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota look great, but are they great enough to make up for a 15-12 or 14-13 record? What if Maryland also immediately loses in the Big Ten tournament to slip to 15-13 or 14-14?

A few teams got in with a 19-15 record in recent years, which is a 55.9 winning percentage. That's the lowest winning percentage ever for an at-large team, though, so 15-13 (53.6 percent) or 14-14 (50.0 percent) might be too low for the committee to stomach.

Projected Seed: No. 9

The Tar Heels got too cute.

Scheduling that last-minute game against Northeastern one week ago worked out nicely. They won by 20, and it gave them some positive momentum heading into a beatdown of Louisville.

But then they upped the ante a bit by scheduling another last-minute game, this time against Marquette. That one didn't work out so well. Outside of scoring the opening bucket, North Carolina trailed for the entire game while acquiring an 83-70 Quadrant 3 loss.

The Tar Heels don't have a win over a team that will definitely make the NCAA tournament. They have a few nice victories—at Duke, vs. Louisville, Stanford and Kentucky on neutral courts—but nary a win that they can hang their hat on.

For a team that's 14-8 with a bad home loss to Marquette and a not-great road loss to NC State, that's a big problem.

The Heels do have a home game against Florida State coming up Saturday. Win that one and they are right back in business. Lose that one, though, and they're in a world of trouble. Even if they win the remaining games at Syracuse and vs. Duke, you're still talking about a team with nine losses, no marquee victories and a couple of questionable losses.

Put it this way: If the top of the resume said "DePaul" instead of "North Carolina," I don't imagine the Bracket Matrix would be anywhere close to calling this a unanimous tournament team.

Projected Seed: No. 6

This one is a big stretch, as the Boilermakers swept projected No. 1 seed Ohio State.

However, if they were to lose each of their remaining regular-season games—at Penn State, vs. Wisconsin, vs. Indiana—things would get dicey.

And that's not that big of an "if." KenPom gives Purdue between a 50 and 66 percent chance of winning each game, so this isn't a, "Well, if they lose the game that no one in their right mind thinks they're going to lose..." situation.

Based on the win probabilities, there's about a 1-in-12 chance Purdue goes 0-3 down the stretch.

Even if that happens, the Boilermakers would still be in reasonable shape at 15-11, with the aforementioned wins over the Buckeyes and only one particularly bad loss (at Miami). But if they were to also immediately lose in the Big Ten tournament (perhaps to Minnesota in the No. 7 vs. No. 10 game), they would be sweating buckets on Selection Sunday.

Projected Seed: No. 8

When 2020 mercifully ended, Rutgers was sitting pretty. The Scarlet Knights were 7-1 with impressive wins over Illinois, Purdue, Maryland and Syracuse. They were ranked in the AP Top 15 and were one of six teams in the conversation for the title of "Best in the Big Ten."

Since then, however, Rutgers has gone 6-8 with only one Quadrant 1 win—a road victory over Indiana, which might be headed for the NIT.

None of those eight losses was a resume killer. In fact, that Michigan State game is now a Quadrant 1 loss following the Spartans' win over Illinois on Tuesday night, so Rutgers doesn't have anything close to a terrible loss.

Yet.

The game at Nebraska on Monday will either lock the Scarlet Knights into the field or send them free-falling to the heart of the bubble.

If they lose that game and the subsequent one at Minnesota—which is extremely difficult to beat at the Barn—Rutgers would enter the Big Ten tournament at 13-11 with one bad loss and no wins in the past 2.5 months over a definite NCAA tournament-bound team. That sounds like a resume with work to do in the conference tournament.