Bracketology

As Selection Sunday nears, most bracketology experts are in agreement on which four teams would currently be the No. 1 seeds for the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

That group includes Kansas, the current No. 1 team in the country, along with its Big 12 rival Baylor and a pair of mid-major teams, Gonzaga and Dayton. Of course, conference championship week could change those projections as tournament losses could push these schools to a lower seeding.

It's a little less clear which bubble teams would currently be in March Madness and which ones would be left out.

Here's a look at what top bracketology experts are projecting as the NCAA tournament gets closer.

      

Predictions from Around the Web

Joe Lunardi, ESPN.com

No. 1 seeds: Kansas, Baylor, Dayton, Gonzaga

Last four in: Stanford, Indiana, Texas, NC State

First four out: Richmond, Xavier, Wichita State, Memphis

Next four out: Mississippi State, Tulsa, Purdue, Northern Iowa

Lunardi goes deep with his bubble projections, as he lists the first eight teams that are currently out of the NCAA tournament. His group includes the mid-major bubble teams, while he put four Power Five schools as his last teams in.

Richmond is 24-7, but it's missing a huge quality win on its resume. The Spiders lost their only two games against ranked opponents this season, falling to Dayton and Auburn. However, they've yet to play in the Atlantic 10 tournament, so there's still time for them to make their way in, especially if they beat Dayton.

Northern Iowa may have a tough time getting in as it lost to Drake in the quarterfinals of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. The Panthers are going to have to hope that a lot of the other bubble teams also lose early in their conference tourneys for them to have a shot at moving in.

Texas is a team that some experts currently have outside of the NCAAs, but Lunardi is including the Longhorns, who are 19-12 and ended the regular season with five wins in six games.

     

Jerry Palm, CBSSports.com

No. 1 seeds: Kansas, Baylor, Dayton, Gonzaga

Last four in: Rutgers, UCLA, Richmond, Wichita State

First four out: Texas, Texas Tech, Mississippi State, NC State

Unlike Lunardi, Palm has Richmond and Wichita State currently in the NCAA tournament.

The Shockers are 23-8 heading into the AAC tournament. Their only win over a ranked team came against Memphis on Jan. 9, but they lost to the Tigers on March 5. A strong showing during its conference tournament could be enough to officially put Wichita in the tournament.

Palm has Mississippi State close to getting in but just missing out. The Bulldogs have 11 losses, but they also have had some solid wins and played close games against Villanova and Kentucky. Whether or not Mississippi State can push its way in likely depends on how it fares in the SEC tourney.

While Lunardi had Texas and NC State making the Big Dance, Palm has both of those schools just out for the time being.

      

Scott Gleeson, USA Today

No. 1 seeds: Kansas, Baylor, Dayton, Gonzaga

Last four in: Texas Tech, Richmond, Stanford, NC State

First four out: Cincinnati, UCLA, Northern Iowa, Texas

The experts are divided on Texas Tech. While Lunardi had the Red Raiders firmly in, Palm has them out. Gleeson isn't as high on them as Lunardi is, but he still has them in March Madness.

Tech is 18-13 after losing four straight games and five of its last seven to end the regular season. It was a tough stretch, but the Raiders own a win over Louisville and played close games against Kansas, Baylor and Kentucky.

Gleeson is in agreement on Northern Iowa missing the tournament, while he also put Texas on the outside of the bubble.

Cincinnati and UCLA are also just outside of the tournament in this projection. The Bearcats are 20-10 entering the AAC tournament, while the Bruins are 19-12 heading into the Pac-12 tournament.

      

Kerry Miller, Bleacher Report

No. 1 seeds: Kansas, Baylor, Dayton, Gonzaga

Last five in: Xavier, Stanford, Richmond, Wichita State, Texas

First five out: UCLA, Northern Iowa, Cincinnati, NC State, Purdue

Perhaps most noteworthy among Miller's projections is the inclusion of Xavier, which experts have differing opinions on at this time.

The Musketeers are 19-12 after they lost back-to-back games to end the regular season. They have to play early in the Big East tournament, as they play their first game against DePaul in the opening round Wednesday night.

If Xavier is going to make a run to the end of its conference tournament, it will take four wins as it was one of the bottom four teams in the Big East during the regular season.

It's early March, which means you cannot possibly watch men's college basketball games without encountering a staggering amount of bracketology terminology.

During games aired on ESPN's family of networks, there are constant references to Joe Lunardi's latest projections for the field of 68, often including live in-game interviews from his "Bracket Bunker." Games on Fox or FS1 will tout Mike DeCourcy's projections at least once every 10 minutes. The same goes for CBS with Jerry Palm's prognostications.

But if you're relatively new to the sport, you might just now be trying to figure out what in the world bracketology is while wondering how hundreds of different bracketologists can come to completely different conclusions from the same data. If so, you're in the right place.

This is my eighth season doing bracketology for Bleacher Report, and I've been obsessively trying to predict the NCAA tournament field for a solid two decades now. By no means am I the most accurate at reading the minds of the selection committee, but I am at least more than qualified to explain some of the primary words and acronyms used in the inexact science of projecting the field.

        

Team No. 1: Bracketology

Best begin at the beginning by defining bracketology itself.

A lot of people seem to think bracketologists are uniquely skilled at predicting what will happen in the NCAA tournament, but that's not what the title means. In fact, it is often the furthest thing from the truth. To the contrary, bracketology is the art/science/process of predicting what the bracket will look like on Selection Sunday.

Not only do we attempt to project which 68 teams will make it into the NCAA tournament, but we also use the NCAA's seeding and bracketing principles to try telling you exactly where each team will be placed.

For example, a bracketologist can tell you Gonzaga will most likely be the No. 1 seed in the West Region, playing its first two games in Spokane, Washington. But a bracketologist is not necessarily the best person to consult if you're wondering whether it's a good idea to pick the Zags to advance to the Final Four.

Now that's out of the way, here are some of the primary metrics and acronyms that bracketologists spend most of their time looking at.

        

Term No. 2: NET

We're not talking about the braided nylons hanging below the rims. Rather, this is the acronym for the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), which replaced Rating Percentage Index (RPI) as the primary metric used to rank teams. (If you don't know what the RPI is/was, don't worry about it. It's dead and gone and never coming back.)

Per the NCAA website, NET is a combination of four factors: team value index, net efficiency, winning percentage and adjusted win percentage.

Team value index is the results-oriented portion of the equation that factors in strength of opponent, who wins and where the game is played. Net efficiency is basically just per-possession scoring margin, but it is capped at 10 points so as to not encourage teams to keep throwing down dunks with their starters in a 30-point blowout. Winning percentage is simply that, and adjusted win percentage factors in the location of the game: Road wins are given extra credit, and road losses aren't penalized as harshly.

How those factors are actually weighted and combined to spit out a daily ranking of the 353 teams is anyone's guess. The NCAA worked with the selection committee, coaches, basketball analytics experts and Google to come up with some top-secret formula it won't release to the public.

The general idea is that this is a better predictive metric than RPI, though, which most basketball fans and experts would agree is a good thing even though we aren't privy to the ins and outs of it. It's not perfect, but if you're good and beat good opponents, you're probably in good shape in the NET. And that NET ranking is the backbone for all tournament resume information.

While it is the backbone, it is not the be-all and end-all. North Carolina State was left out of last year's tournament despite a respectable NET ranking of 33rd. St. John's got in with a NET ranking of 73rd. Think of NET as more of a starting point from which the selection committee will move a team up or down based on other factors.

        

Term No. 3: Resume

Just like a job resume, a team's tournament resume (or team sheet) is a one-page snapshot of everything it has done to deserve (or not deserve) consideration for the NCAA tournament.

Resumes are broken down into four quadrants (more on that term shortly), which is extremely helpful in quickly identifying good wins and bad losses.

Other tidbits of information on a resume include NET ranking, strength of schedule (another soon-to-be-defined term) and records by location.

One big thing not included on a resume is conference record.

Fans love to bring up the conference records of various teams when arguing about seeding or selection, but it doesn't matter. The selection committee looks at the full body of work, which is obviously influenced by a team's successes and failures in league play, but its members are never going to say, "Well, we should give some more credit to this team because it finished in the top half of the [insert major conference]."

For proof of how much conference record doesn't matter, look at the 2017-18 Pac-12. USC finished in sole possession of second place with a 12-6 record and didn't make the NCAA tournament, but Arizona State went 8-10, was the No. 9 seed in the conference tournament and got an at-large bid.

       

Term No. 4: Quadrants

As previously mentioned, each game falls into one of four quadrants, which are based on a combination of the opponent's NET ranking and the location of the game. Here's the breakdown:

• Quadrant 1: Home games vs. NET Top 30, Neutral-site games vs. NET Top 50, Road games vs. NET Top 75
• Quadrant 2: Home vs. NET 31-75, Neutral vs. NET 51-100, Road vs. NET 76-135
• Quadrant 3: Home vs. NET 76-160, Neutral vs. NET 101-200, Road vs. NET 136-240
• Quadrant 4: Home vs. NET 161-353, Neutral vs. NET 201-363, Road vs. NET 241-353

Quadrant is a relatively new term that was put into place prior to the 2017-18 season. We had the four-buckets idea for a while, but the games used to be placed into groups—RPI Top 50, RPI 51-100, RPI 101-200 and RPI 201-plus—without accounting for the location.

In that previous bucketing, a home win over the 50th-best team looked the same (from a bird's-eye view) as a road win over the No. 1 team. The latter certainly counted for more, but when we would spout off about a team having "X RPI Top 50 wins," the X counted at No. 1 and vs. No. 50 as equals.

The new system does a better job of categorizing quality wins and bad losses.

On its nitty-gritty team sheets, WarrenNolan.com (my daily go-to for all bracketology research) even goes one step further, breaking Quadrants 1 and 2 down into a top half and a bottom half. If nothing else, this helps identify which quality wins were of the highest quality and which results were closest to the various cut lines and most likely to move to a different quadrant.

To that end, be sure to note that a Quadrant 1 win isn't permanently a Quadrant 1 win. Here's a potentially significant example from this year's bubble: Richmond's Jan. 14 road win over Davidson was a Quadrant 1 result on Tuesday morning. But after Richmond beat Davidson by 17 at home that night, the Wildcats dropped from NET No. 74 to No. 76, bumping Richmond's previous win down to Quadrant 2.  

        

Term No. 5: Strength of Schedule (SOS)

Strength of schedule is a means of ranking teams by the difficulty of the paths they have taken*, and it is sort of baked into everything else.

SOS shows up on each resume, it is factored into the NET's team value index, and it can be more or less inferred from discussions about quadrants. For instance, Kansas has played 14 games against Quadrant 1. Gonzaga has played 10 each against Quadrants 3 and 4. One doesn't need to know the ins and outs of how SOS is calculated to know the former has faced a much tougher schedule than the latter.

Because it is already an ingredient of the metrics, we don't often look at it as a standalone data point.

The exception to the rule is when a team has a particularly bad nonconference strength of schedule (NCSOS).

Among the teams that are at least in the conversation for an at-large bid, this year's biggest offender is Penn State. The Nittany Lions played 11 nonconference games, five of which were at home against Quadrant 4, including two against the especially bad Maryland-Eastern Shore (NET No. 350) and Central Connecticut (NET No. 347).

While almost every team has a couple of nonconference cream puffs on its schedule, it's important to balance the scales with a few Quadrant 1 games. Penn State neglected to do so. Wins against the likes of Georgetown, Alabama and Syracuse were OK, but the Nittany Lions did not play a single nonconference game against a projected at-large team, which is a great big no-no for the selection committee.

Even though the rest of Penn State's metrics look good, the committee almost always penalizes teams with an NCSOS outside the top 300. The Nittany Lions are hovering around No. 330 in that category. It won't keep them from earning a bid, but it might cost them a couple of seed lines.

Teams also often get rewarded or forgiven for putting together a challenging NCSOS. LSU, for example, doesn't have a single great win, but a top-10 NCSOS has kept the Tigers more than afloat.

Aside from those two extremes, though, SOS doesn't usually receive much attention.

        

Term No. 6: Automatic Bid/At-Large Bid

We'll finish with an easy one.

There are 68 spots in the NCAA tournament field. Thirty-two are awarded to the winners of the conference tournaments, and 36 others are at-large qualifiers deemed worthy of an invitation despite not winning their conference tournament—sort of like the wild-card teams in MLB or the NFL.

The automatic/at-large designation only applies to selection, not to seeding. In other words, at-large teams don't need to be seeded lower than the automatic bids. In fact, it's somewhat common for No. 1 seeds to be at-large teams.

[Bonus term: Bid Thief. This is when a team that wouldn't be expected to get into the tournament with an at-large bid surprisingly "steals" an automatic bid in a conference with at least one other tournament-bound team. This forces a projected auto bid into the pool of 36 at-larges, which shrinks the bubble. For instance, if North Carolina miraculously won the ACC tournament this year, it would be a bid thief.]

Up until the conference tournaments, the automatic bids are projected to go to either the best team or the one with the best conference record (depending on who you ask).

But whereas those professional wild-card teams are based entirely on record and predetermined tiebreaker scenarios when necessary, the 10-member selection committee is tasked with choosing (and subsequently seeding in order) the best at-large candidates based on a group discussion about what each member feels is most important.

This intentional vagueness regarding criteria is why three well-respected bracketologists can have diverging opinions about where a certain team should be placed. All three could end up being wrong.

Our job as bracketologists isn't to tell you what we think should happen, but rather what we think the committee will decide. And considering up to five of the 10 committee members are replaced each year, what seems most important one season is liable to change during the following one.

So there you have it.

There are plenty of other terms and websites worth knowing, but you can pick those up along the way. If you've got a firm grasp on NET, resume, quadrants, SOS and auto/at-large, you're pretty much ready to become an amateur bracketologist. At the very least, you'll have a much better understanding of all the blind resumes and "Last Four In" banter with which you'll be inundated until Selection Sunday.

*Other metrics like KenPom.com and ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI) will have different SOS rankings because the calculations are based on their team ratings. However, a terrific/dreadful strength of schedule tends to be terrific/dreadful regardless of the source.

                  

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @kerrancejames.

Selection Sunday for the 2019 NCAA men's basketball tournament is finally here.

In just a few hours, the selection committee will let us know the 68 teams in the tournament field.

It's a joyous occasion for some, and doomsday for others.

Our projected No. 1 seeds for the 2019 men's NCAA basketball tournament are Virginia, North Carolina, Duke and Gonzaga, and that will not change based on Sunday's results. A lot of people have been saying that Tennessee or Michigan State might jump to the No. 1 line if either wins its conference title game, but the selection committee has a tendency to ignore the results of the SEC and Big Ten championships, and we'll be doing the same.

If Kentucky had beaten Tennessee in the SEC semifinals, the Wildcats would have supplanted North Carolina on the top line. However, Tennessee's resume isn't quite as strong as Kentucky's—in spite of two wins over the Wildcats. UNC has nine Quadrant 1A wins and a 10th one-NET-spot-outside-Q1A home win over Florida State (the Volunteers have seven), played a much more difficult schedule and went 11-1 in road games.

At the other end of the spectrum, Oregon was a late bid thief Saturday night, blowing out Washington in the Pac-12 championship game to shrink the bubble by one spot.

The selection show starts at 6 p.m. ET Sunday, and it will be streamed live on March Madness Live and broadcast on CBS.

Up until that time, our live bracket projection will help you try to make sense of the constant chaos.

After the projected bracket for each region, we'll dive into a bubble watch, hitting on the current last four in, first four out and perhaps a few others. For each bubble team, the three best wins and three worst losses are highlighted to add some context to why they're on the bubble. Those best/worst results are a little subjective but are primarily based on NET and KenPom rankings.

FINAL UPDATE: 4:10 p.m. ET on Sunday.

        

First Four Games

No. 16 seed in South Region: North Carolina Central vs. Prairie View A&M
No. 16 seed in West Region: Iona vs. Fairleigh Dickinson
No. 11 seed in East Region: Indiana vs. Texas
No. 11 seed in South Region: Belmont vs. Ohio State

        

Fourth-to-Last In: Texas Longhorns (16-16)
Three Best Wins: North Carolina (neutral), at Kansas State, vs. Purdue
Three Worst Losses: vs. Radford, at Georgia, at Oklahoma State

We are in uncharted waters here. Could a team seriously get an at-large bid with a .500 record? Well, based on the metrics—Texas is top 40 in the NET and top 30 on KenPom—it seems that way. Texas played one of the toughest schedules in the nation and put together a nice collection of quality wins. Still, 16 losses might be a bridge too far.

One major development from Thursday night's loss to Kansas to keep an eye on: Projected lottery pick Jaxson Hayes went down with a knee injury with two minutes left and did not return. I don't want to speculate on the severity of the injury, but if there is any doubt that he'll be able to play in the NCAA tournament, that may be the last straw that pushes the Longhorns out in the eyes of the selection committee.

        

Third-to-Last In: Indiana Hoosiers (17-15)
Three Best Wins: at Michigan State, vs. Michigan State, vs. Wisconsin
Three Worst Losses: at Rutgers, at Northwestern, vs. Ohio State

By now, you know the deal with Indiana: six Quadrant 1 wins, no Quadrant 3 or Quadrant 4 losses, but 15 total losses. In addition to the three wins listed above, the Hoosiers also won home games against Louisville and Marquette during nonconference play. That should be enough. Vanderbilt earned a No. 9 seed two years ago with 15 losses—one of which was a terrible misstep against a team outside the RPI Top 250. And this year's bubble is even weaker than that year's was.

        

Second-to-Last In: Ohio State Buckeyes (19-14)
Three Best Wins: at Cincinnati, at Nebraska, at Indiana
Three Worst Losses: vs. Illinois, at Rutgers, at Northwestern

Ohio State defeated Indiana in the second round of the Big Ten tournament, which might serve as a tiebreaker between the two Big Ten schools. Neither is safe, though. Since the season-opening win at Cincinnati, Ohio State is 0-9 against the NET top 40. The Buckeyes got a bunch of low-Q1 and high-Q2 wins simply by not going winless in Big Ten play, but it's been a long time since their last impressive victory. Factor in the home loss to Illinois, and they'll be sweating out the weekend in Columbus.

                  

Last Team In: Belmont Bruins (26-5)
Three Best Wins: at Murray State, at Lipscomb, vs. Lipscomb
Three Worst Losses: at Green Bay, vs. Jacksonville State, at Jacksonville State

Playing without primary big man Nick Muszynski (injured in the OVC semifinal), Belmont lost to Murray State in the conference championship game. If the selection committee is serious about taking injuries into consideration in its evaluation of teams, that's a key one to keep in mind. Either way, this is a borderline top-50 team both on KenPom and in the NET. The season sweep of Lipscomb arguably makes Belmont the best of the many mid-major at-large candidates.

One thing to keep in mind if my projection is close to what the committee is actually considering: Belmont's nonconference SOS ranks 75th in the nation. If the committee is comparing Belmont and NC State head-to-head at any point, that's a nice advantage for the Bruins.

             

First Team Out: North Carolina State Wolfpack (22-11)
Three Best Wins: vs. Auburn, vs. Syracuse, Clemson (neutral)
Three Worst Losses: at Wake Forest, vs. Georgia Tech, vs. Virginia Tech

North Carolina State played a laughably weak nonconference schedule, and those chickens may be coming home to roost. Even though the Wolfpack defeated all of those terrible opponents and suffered only two remotely bad losses in ACC play, their lack of quality wins is a major issue. Beating Clemson in the ACC tournament's No. 8 vs. No. 9 game was crucial, but we'll see if that's enough.

                    

Second Team Out: Arizona State Sun Devils (22-10)
Three Best Wins: Mississippi State (neutral), vs. Kansas, Utah State (neutral)
Three Worst Losses: vs. Washington State, vs. Princeton, at Vanderbilt

The No. 2 seed in the Pac-12 tournament is normally a lock for the NCAA tournament. However, the second-best team in the Pac-12 doesn't normally suffer nine losses to teams that aren't headed to the Big Dance, either. Thus, here we are. The Sun Devils took care of business against UCLA in the Pac-12 quarterfinals, but losing to Oregon in the semifinals might have been the last straw.

Truthfully, I don't know what to make of this resume. Arizona State is ranked outside the top 60 on both NET and KenPom. It went 4-1 against teams in the projected field, yet it has 10 total losses. Between this team, 16-loss Texas and worst-NCSOS-in-the-nation NC State, it has been a most bizarre year for the bubble.

            

Third Team Out: Temple Owls (23-9)
Three Best Wins: vs. Houston, vs. UCF, at Missouri
Three Worst Losses: vs. Penn, at Tulsa, Wichita State (neutral)

Temple was a last-four-in team for a lot of bracketologists at the beginning of the week, but I already had the Owls out before they lost their AAC opener to Wichita State. Hard to imagine they'll get in at this point.

The main grievance against Temple is that the metrics never much cared for this team. The Owls spent the entire season outside the KenPom top 65, and they weren't even in the NET top 50 prior to the loss to the Shockers. They battled well in losses to VCU, Villanova, UCF, Cincinnati and Houston, but it's a shame they were unable to turn one of those close defeats into a pivotal win.

               

Fourth Team Out: St. John's Red Storm (21-12)
Three Best Wins: at Marquette, vs. Villanova, vs. Marquette
Three Worst Losses: vs. DePaul, vs. Georgetown, vs. Providence

You'll notice that all six of the most noteworthy results for St. John's were in conference play. That's because its nonconference schedule was dreadful outside an overtime win over VCU and a 30-point loss to Duke. In spite of that, the Red Storm were in great shape after they knocked off Villanova in mid-February. Since then, though, they went 2-5, which included four losses to teams outside the field and Thursday night's 86-54 shellacking against Marquette. I already had the Johnnies projected as the first team out before that game, and they didn't help themselves at all with that performance. Time to sweat.

            

Fifth Team Out: Lipscomb Bisons (25-7)
Three Best Wins: at TCU, at Liberty, at SMU
Three Worst Losses: at Florida Gulf Coast, vs. Liberty, vs. Liberty

For the time being, there's still a strong case to be made for Lipscomb. The Bisons played seven nonconference games against KenPom top 125 teams and won three of them. They had only one truly bad loss all season. And the proverbial eye test bodes well. But they'll need a lot of help to remain in the hunt for an at-large bid, both from major-conference bubble teams losing early and from teams like Nevada and Buffalo winning their leagues and preventing bid thieves from surfacing.

          

Sixth Team Out: Creighton Bluejays (18-14)
Three Best Wins: at Marquette, Clemson (neutral), at Providence
Three Worst Losses: vs. St. John's, vs. Ohio State, Xavier (neutral)

Creighton doesn't have any terrible losses. However, 14 "good" losses is still bad when you've won only one game against a guaranteed NCAA tournament team. Indiana and Texas have more losses, but those squads also have quite the collection of quality wins to make up for it. Had they beaten Xavier in the Big East quarterfinals, the Jays might have jumped into the field. But a terrible final possession doomed them to a two-point loss, and probably the NIT.

                    

Seventh Team Out: Clemson Tigers (19-13)
Three Best Wins: vs. Virginia Tech, vs. Syracuse, vs. Lipscomb
Three Worst Losses: at Miami, vs. Nebraska, Creighton (neutral)

Clemson has this year's easy-to-hate resume. The Tigers went only 1-10 against Quadrant 1, and the lone win was a home game against Virginia Tech playing without its starting point guard. But strong metrics and a lack of bad losses have kept Clemson hanging around the bubble. If (and when) the Tigers get left out, they'll only have themselves to blame. Blowing that huge first-half lead against NC State in the second round of the ACC tournament Wednesday is going to sting for months.

Others considered (in no particular order): Alabama, Furman, UNC Greensboro, Memphis, Xavier

                      

Advanced stats courtesy of KenPom.com. NET rankings and quadrant data courtesy of WarrenNolan.com. NET rankings updated daily.

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.

NCAA conference tournaments will add some pieces to the March Madness puzzle this week. For now, bracketologists are scrambling to solve a mess with few clear answers.

The process began on Saturday night when Murray State cemented an automatic bid in a 77-65 Ohio Valley Conference victory over Belmont.

While onlookers can breathe a sigh of relief knowing Ja Morant will partake in the NCAA tournament, the Bruins now must cross their fingers as a bubble squad.

Before conference tournaments kick into full force, let's take a look at what the experts are saying about Belmont and three other fringe March Madness candidates.

     

Belmont

Belmont had stockpiled 14 straight victories before succumbing to Murray State on Saturday. Although they must now sweat out Selection Sunday, the Bruins still send an impressive portfolio to the committee.

At 26-5, Belmont ranks No. 41 in RPI and No. 53 in KenPom's team rating. Despite a lack of standout wins in a soft schedule, the mid-major squad received a groundswell of support following its OVC title defeat:

FINAL: Murray State 77, Belmont 65. Ja Morant is in the NCAA Tournament. And hopefully Belmont is too. Who needs a bunch of average Power-5 schools in this bracket? Put Rick Byrd’s team in the First Four against one of them — then watch Belmont beat an average Power-5 team by 13.

— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) March 10, 2019

Belmont loses OVC final to Murray State, splits 1-1 with Murray State.

The Bruins:
»5-3 in Quad 1+2 games.
»Top-70 noncon SOS.
»12 road wins—more than Kansas, Texas, Clemson and Minnesota COMBINED.
»Twenty-six wins, five losses.

PUT. THEM. IN. THE. DANCE.

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 10, 2019

Belmont is an NCAA Tournament team. Rick Byrd’s Bruins should be IN as an at-large selection. So it shall be.

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) March 10, 2019

If Belmont doesn’t make the NCAA tournament with the bubble as weak as it is, then I will lose all faith in the integrity of the tournament.

— Jared Stillman (@JaredStillman) March 10, 2019

Entering the weekend, ESPN's Joe Lunardi had Belmont as a No. 12 seed, but Murray State wasn't invited to his projected tournament. This could indicate trouble, as CBS Sports' Jerry Palm listed the Bruins among his first-four cuts on Sunday. 

Also working against them, they'd become just the second OVC club ever to receive an at-large bid. As Palm noted, no team in any conference has received one with a strength of schedule ranked outside the top 200 since 2006. 

Following Saturday's loss, head coach Rick Byrd said he's "not going to campaign" for his club, per the Nashville Tennessean's Mike Organ. 

"To be 16-2 in this league, this year with this team, I'm as proud as I can be, and that means we've got a really good basketball team," Byrd said. "How that compares with the other people that are going to be on the NCAA tournament bubble, I don't know."

Belmont deserves its first March Madness appearance since 2015, but don't be shocked when it gets snubbed for a power-conference squad with lesser credentials.

Prediction: Out 

     

Temple

Temple is more than just a sentimental selection after upending No. 25 UCF in Fran Dunphy's final regular-season game.

A standing ovation for Head Coach Fran Dunphy in his final home game.

To say thank you doesn’t feel like enough - A true Philadelphia basketball legend and so much more.

The best part: We’re not done yet 🍒 pic.twitter.com/8DndBOi7rx

— Temple Owls (@TempleOwls) March 9, 2019

Following Saturday's 67-62 upset, the Owls jumped ahead of the Knights as the No. 3 seed in the American Athletic Conference tournament.

They also boast a win over top-seeded Houston, which is allotted a No. 3 slot in the NCAA tournament by Lunardi and Palm prior to Sunday's win over Cincinnati.

America is a divided country, but the nation is in agreement that Fran Dunphy belongs in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Temple now owns wins over UCF and Houston. Close to being a lock.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 9, 2019

Residing at 23-8 with an average point differential of plus-4.0, the metrics don't form a consensus on the Owls.

While a No. 31 RPI offers a favorable endorsement, they reside at No. 69 on KenPom without a top-75 offense or defense. They're also right on the fence with a No. 66 in ESPN's BPI. 

Lunardi and Palm, however, each included Temple in their latest brackets. Even without running the gauntlet, a strong showing in the AAC tournament would go a long way.

Sports Illustrated's Michael Beller said a run including another win over Houston or Cincinnati would punch a ticket for the Owls.

An early exit could conversely end Dunphy's 13-year run as Temple's head coach. Winners of six of their last seven, the team should at least hold its own enough to earn a No. 12 seed as an at-large inclusion.

Prediction: In

    

Clemson and NC State

Lunardi projects the ACC to lead the way with nine March Madness representatives. A stacked grouping headlined by Virginia, North Carolina and Duke also features Clemson and NC State fighting for consideration.

The two bubble teams happen to open the ACC tournament against each other on Wednesday. Beller believes the victor will cement an invitation, but the loser won't necessarily get left out in the cold.

Yet Lunardi has both schools listed among his first-four in, so a one-and-done could conceivably knock out the loser. Palm, who has the Wolfpack among his first-four out, called it a probable "elimination game." 

Each 9-9 in ACC play, NC State and Clemson carry underwhelming records of 21-10 and 19-12, respectively. Tough schedules could nevertheless bail them out, as the Tigers and Wolfpack respectively rank No. 28 and 31 in KenPom's adjusted team ratings.

They have also looked strong in defeat this season. NC State fell short by a point in overtime to Virginia—a near top-seed lock—in January, and Clemson's last loss occurred on March 2's 81-79 thriller with North Carolina.

Recent defeats to Florida State and Georgia Tech put NC State in higher jeopardy of getting excluded with a loss on Wednesday. Since the selection committee favors the major conference participants, look for both of them to sneak into the field after another highly competitive head-to-head matchup.

Prediction: In (both)