March 12, 3:30 PM Bracket Notes

My final NIT bracket projection prior to the NCAA Selection Show at 6 pm on CBS is up on the site now. While seeding that bracket I tried to keep as tightly to geographic concerns as possible but I still included the teams I think will make the bracket. This means that I have the somewhat awkward first round matchup of Washington St. traveling across the country to play Villanova. My ultimate decision was that one awkward matchup is better than a bunch of slightly awkward ones. Last year's committee definitely agreed with this approach, but it could change this time around.

I know that having Vanderbilt in my bracket over Rutgers is against consensus. We'll see if that's right or wrong come the NCAA Selection Show. I feel certain that I'm going to miss on at least one team and potentially multiple along the NCAA cut line. There are just too many resumes that aren't that great and there were no bid stealers to help out.

On the other hand, there are ultimately 11 automatic bids to the NIT this season. That's exactly as many as there were last season and right in line with the historical range. The last automatic bid went to Yale, which gave me another team from the northeast to play with in the bracket.

There are lots of ways this NIT bracket could be wrong. Some teams I still think could hear their name called are: Nebraska, San Jose St., Dayton, San Francisco, and UCF. Theoretically, any team in my bubble post is fair game.

March 12, 8:45 AM Bracket Notes

I took another look at where I'm off the BracketMatrix consensus when it comes to the NCAA Tournament bubble. Prior to this morning's update there were two major discrepancies. I had Oklahoma St. and Vanderbilt in the NCAA Tournament and Rutgers and Pittsburgh out.

After looking at the resumes again, I've decided to change one of those. I've moved Pittsburgh into the NCAA Tournament and Oklahoma St. back into my First Four Out. This shakes up the No. 1 seed pairings a little bit because gone is the perfect complement to Youngstown State. Now the Penguins are heading to New Brunswick, NJ instead to take on Rutgers.

As for Rutgers, I just cannot get past the historically anomalous record that the Scarlet Knights have put together this season. If they get selected, it will be with more bad losses than is typically thought possible. Rutgers is 70th in T-Rank Wins Above Bubble. The only reason they're even in this conversation is the plethora of opportunities for good wins that the Big Ten provides.

Unless Yale or VCU falls in their conference tournament this is probably the last update before the NCAA Tournament bracket announce on CBS. After that show we'll know the No. 1 seeds in the NIT. I will make those changes shortly after the announcement. Then the entire NIT field is being announced tonight at 10 pm on ESPNU. Let's see who is in this tournament!

March 11, 8 AM Bracket Notes

Two results from late last night affected the NIT bracket. The easier one is that Utah Valley lost in the WAC semifinals after a late comeback by Southern Utah. That hands the Wolverines an automatic bid to the NIT as the WAC champion. (Sam Houston St. also lost yesterday, so the WAC did no favors to NIT bubble teams this season.) UVU's automatic bid eliminated Wake Forest's at-large spot.

The second result was Vanderbilt's win over Kentucky. At this point it feels like to me that Vanderbilt has done enough to make the NCAA Tournament. Jerry Stackhouse's team is 10-1 in its last 11 games and has now beaten Kentucky on the road and on a neutral court. Similar resumes to Vanderbilt's are often selected to the NCAA Tournament. The conundrum for me was which team to bump. I ultimately decided to once again send Rutgers down to the NIT. I could honestly see the committee going either direction on the Scarlet Knights. Other teams I considered bumping: NC State, Arizona St., Oklahoma St. and Providence. All of those teams feel like true "bubble" teams to me at this point.

I am going to do a full scrub of the NIT bracket later today, so there may be some movement. Every team currently in the bracket, with the exception of UAB, is now done playing. So we should be getting closer to our final product, with the exception of the automatic bids.

We should also see the end of the automatic bid parade (almost). Of the seven 1-bid league champions teams remaining, five play in their league title games today. (VCU and Yale are in the A-10 and Ivy League semifinals respectively.) This means two things: These are the hardest games in most cases (except Iona, which is playing Marist in the MAAC final) and this is it. If the No. 1 seeds win those games they'll be in the NCAA Tournament and not the NIT.

March 10, 11:20 PM Bracket Notes

UC Irvine fell in the Big West semifinals, which took another automatic NIT bid. The change causes a little bit of chaos in the bracket as Saint Louis drops out for now. Bradley moves from playing Michigan to playing Wisconsin because Wake Forest, the current last at-large team in the field, cannot play in the same half of a quadrant as Virginia Tech.

March 10, 5:30 PM Bracket Notes

I looked at the NCAA Tournament bubble again after Rutgers lost to Purdue. The Scarlet Knights have a number of bad losses, but they also have way better wins than Nevada. I think the tournament will lean that way and send Steve Pikiell's squad to Dayton. I've moved Rutgers back into my NCAA Tournament field and moved Nevada down to the NIT. This causes only a minor reshuffle and allows me to make what is basically a western quadrant of the bracket.

March 10, 10 AM Bracket Notes

The NIT bracket is updated again. The biggest changes are around the NCAA cut line. I've moved Oklahoma St. into the NCAA Tournament and Rutgers out. Clemson, Vanderbilt and Oregon are all still playing. If one of those teams win today there's a good chance that they would go into the NCAA Tournament bracket and I would remove one of my last four teams, which are (in order): Oklahoma St., Providence, North Carolina St., and Nevada.

While it doesn't look like it based on this bracket (and bracketing principles), San Jose St. has moved up my S-curve considerably. The problem is that Washington St. and Colorado both moved down, which meant there was only one West Coast slot towards the middle of the bracket that wasn't from the Mountain West Conference.

My last teams in the NIT, which would be replaced by automatic bids if they happen are (in order from safest to not): Cincinnati, San Jose St., Nebraska, Wake Forest, and Saint Louis.

There are still eight teams that could potentially need an automatic bid to the NIT. There's also Florida Atlantic. If the Owls were to lose to Middle Tennessee today it would cause a large cascade of events from the NCAA Tournament all the way down into the middle of this bracket (because the winner of UAB-North Texas would become the CUSA favorite).

There are also a few interesting teams still lurking outside of this bracket that are currently playing basketball. They are: UCF, Kent St., Dayton, Tulane. All four of those teams have NET ratings within striking distance of at-large bid territory.

March 9, 8:15 PM Bracket Notes

Games have played out pretty much as expected throughout the day, which means there hasn't been a ton of movement in the bracket yet. If anything it has made teams that had already finished playing a little safer.

One team that just picked up a big win is San Jose State. Tim Miles's team is still in bubble territory, but they've moved a bit higher in the S-curve after defeating Nevada — a Quad I victory.

One team that has dropped out has nothing to do with their play, but off the court issues. A Texas Tech spokesperson told the media today that the Red Raiders will not pursue postseason basketball. I am taking them at their word and removing them from this bracket. Since there have been no automatic bids handed out thus far today, that means that Saint Louis is the lucky recipient of that final slot. (Other teams that I considered included UCF, Tulane, Marshall and Kent State.)

It's quite possible the NCAA cut line will need some revision after today, but the results haven't been pretty there either. Nevada lost, Pittsburgh lost (by 27), Michigan lost, Providence lost, and West Virginia lost. Let's see if an NCAA bubble team can figure out how to win in the night session. (Looking at you Penn State and North Carolina!)

Update: Penn St. did indeed win. The Nittany Lions replace Pittsburgh in the NCAA bracket.

March 9, 8 AM NIT Bracket Notes

Yesterday's results created a lot of movement in the bracket. One particularly noteworthy move is the departure of Utah from the bracket. The Utes are 80th in NET this morning, but they rank 100th in Strength of Record. Utah also lost six straight and eight of 10 to finish the season. That sort of slide is tough to overcome in the selection room.

Nebraska has a number of a good wins, but the Cornhuskers took their worst loss of the season to Minnesota last night and are now projected to have a NET above 100, which would be an extreme outlier for how the committee has typically selected teams. The Cornhuskers also saw their KenPom rating fall to 95 after the loss to the Golden Gophers. Last year's committee relied heavily on predictive metrics, and if they do so again that would make it difficult for Nebraska to get a bid. The Cornhuskers still have seven Quad I and II victories against just one bad loss (the one against Minnesota), but taking that as your final statement to the committee is a tough look. Honestly though, there's not really a good choice to replace Nebraska within the bracket, which is why the Cornhuskers are still here, but much much closer to the cut line.

Another team that is impossible to figure out is Texas Tech. The Red Raiders haven't lost a game all season to a team outside of Quad I or II, but they're 5-16 against that competition and 16-16 overall. They also just fired their head coach. Right now TTU's resume is just too good to ignore, but I'm monitoring the situation.

Seton Hall lost to DePaul yesterday, but I still the Pirates are in line to play in the NIT and quite possibly receive a home game depending on how things shake out down the stretch.

Alcorn St. enters the bracket as the automatic bid from the SWAC. The Braves went 15-3 in SWAC play but lost in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament to Texas Southern.

Closer to the cut line for the NCAA Tournament, Wisconsin dropped out of the NCAA Tournament and into a No. 2 seed after losing to Ohio St. in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. That might seem harsh, but I think there are just a number of teams that a) have a chance to continue to improve their resume and b) have a better chance of being selected as the First Four Out by the committee than the 17-14 Badgers. Rutgers was moved back into the NCAA Tournament, which is why they're no longer in this bracket. But I could see that changing down the stretch given the unique resume the Scarlet Knights possess.

March 6, 11:30 PM Bracket Notes

What happened tonight was simple: The No. 1 seeds in the CAA (Hofstra) and Horizon League (Youngstown St.) both lost. What isn't simple is how those results affect the bracket. Hofstra lost in the first CAA semifinal, but the College of Charleston held off a hard-charging Towson team in the second game in Washington, DC. That means the Cougars are currently the CAA's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, removing Pat Kelsey's squad from the No. 1 seed position that it held in the NIT earlier today.

This results in every other team in the top four seed lines (plus one lucky five seed) moving up a little bit. Congrats Seton Hall, you're now a No. 3 seed! That puts the Pirates in perfect position to host the Pride in a game that would have a lot of local buzz in the New York area. Congrats Nebraska, you're now a No. 4 seed! The Cornhuskers would get to host a game in this scenario. (Though Villanova is a little geographically implausible.)

Dayton was the team I dropped from the bracket after Youngstown St. fell to Northern Kentucky in the Horizon League semifinals. The Flyers still have a chance to sneak into the NIT somewhere depending on what happens in Brooklyn this week, but besides a NET in the high 70s there's not a ton there. (Dayton is 2-7 against Quads I and II.) Other teams in real danger? San Jose St., Wake Forest, Utah, and Cincinnati.

That's about it for tonight. There's basketball all day tomorrow. I'm sure more changes will be on their way.

March 6, 1:30 PM NIT Bracket Notes

I spent my lunch break looking at the cut line for the NCAA Tournament and I have decided that I slightly overreacted to Providence's resume, at least in light of Rutgers losing at home to Northwestern last night.

Rutgers needed a victory to offset its particularly bad losses, but the Scarlet Knights have just not been playing that well lately. Their Strength of Record is now 62, which is very far off what you'd want to see from an at-large bid. When looking at resume comparisons on Bart Torvik's excellent site almost all (9 of 10) of Rutgers' closest comps were left out of the NCAA Tournament.

So Rutgers is now a No. 1 seed in the NIT. They're joined by two mid-majors that have the potential to get screwed by the committee — North Texas and College of Charleston — and a league foe that they recently defeated but looks better and better - Penn State.

For those wondering, I think there are approximately nine true "bubble" slots left in the NCAA tournament. The teams I currently have filling them are: Utah St., Nevada, Illinois, North Carolina St., Pittsburgh, Providence, Arizona St., Wisconsin, and Mississippi State. Obviously all of those teams will continue to play games this week. It's often been noted that conference tournaments don't matter much for selection and seeding, but that's definitely not the case for the NIT (or the bubble I believe). So I'll be watching closely this week.

The new bracket is out. I'll update it again tonight if any of the No. 1 seeds in action fall in their conference tournaments. (This is pretty likely.)

March 5, 9 PM NIT Bracket Notes

The two biggest changes to the bracket since this afternoon are the inclusion of Nebraska and switch out out Drake for Bradley. Also, Liberty became the second at-large team (after Santa Clara) that will play no more games until they're selected for some sort of postseason tournament. Let's briefly discuss all three cases and explain how they've impacted the bracket.

When Bradley lost the Missouri Valley Conference final to Drake it created a swap of teams in the NIT bracket. But while Bradley and Drake have relatively similar resumes according to most metrics, the Bulldogs have been hanging onto a neutral site victory over Mississippi St. during non-conference. Bradley lost every premiere non-conference game it played and is currently 0-5 against Quad I opponents. This fact will probably push Bradley further down the NIT bracket than where its conference counterpart would've been, which pushes some mid-tier teams higher.

Nebraska joins the NIT bracket, replacing Saint Louis, after the Cornhuskers' stunning victory at Iowa this afternoon. It was going to be hard for Nebraska to go 2-1 in the Big Ten tournament to get to the magic .500 line. But after their third top 40 road victory, the Cornhuskers can beat Minnesota and be relatively safe. Why? Because Nebraska has 0 bad losses and a host of good ones. The one wrinkle would be if the committee decided to go heavy on predictive metrics again. While the KPI and Strength of Record think Nebraska is for real, the Cornhuskers came into the day ranked 94th in NET. They're 94th in KenPom even after winning at Iowa. (Nebraska is also 48th in KenPom's "luck", which explains a little bit of the difference between the two styles of metrics.) I find it hard to believe though that the NIT would leave a team out that has seven total QI and QII wins.

A team the predictive metrics (and the NET) liked coming into today was Liberty. The Flames came into their Atlantic Sun final against Kennesaw State ranked 44th in KenPom. Despite the close loss, they still rank 46th. Liberty has no Quad I wins and is just 1-2 against Quad II. Liberty did beat Bradley on a neutral court during non-conference, but that's its only win amongst 26 that is against a projected NCAA or NIT team. It's an absolutely perplexing resume that'll test the committee's boundaries. It's hard to win 26 games no matter who you play, so hopefully that'll hold some sway. I believe Liberty probably will get in, but they're right up against the projected automatic bid cut line at the moment.

Update at 9:35 pm ET: Eastern Washington just lost in the Big Sky quarterfinals. The loss add another automatic bid recipient to the NIT and caused a bunch of reshuffling in the bracket as well because of geographic considerations. It makes a ton of sense that the NIT committee would send EWU to Oregon. Tulane was the team that was removed from the bracket. Wake Forest was the bubble team I was going to send to Providence, but Virginia Tech is in that quadrant. So Wake Forest heads to Penn St. now (to most likely eventually be replaced by an automatic bid) and Dayton heads to Providence.

Also, Rutgers appears likely to lose to Northwestern by quite a wide margin. This will cause me to take another long look at the Scarlet Knights' resume tomorrow. I will be comparing it to teams currently in the NIT, including Penn State (which just lost to Rutgers at home) and Providence.

March 5, 2:45 pm NIT Bracket Notes

There are a lot of changes in the new bracket after a busy Saturday. I wanted to explain some of the biggest.

Providence has dropped down from the NCAA Tournament to the NIT. Based on the reaction I'm getting on Twitter this is apparently a hot take, but I'm not sure why. While I could see the committee taking Providence over maybe Mississippi St. or Rutgers, it's extremely close right now and I would lean the other two teams based on their entire bodies of work. Other teams that I think are extremely close to the cut line are Pittsburgh, North Carolina St., Arizona St. and Wisconsin. A particular warning signal for all of these teams is their respective KPI ratings. The "resume" metric is basically designed to predict the committee and Providence has the worst of the group at 61 right now. (Arizona St. is second at 56 and Mississippi St. is 53.)

I moved Wisconsin into the NCAA Tournament. The Badgers have 11 Q1 and Q2 wins and have resume metrics that are closer to the top of the bubble than the bottom.

I still think that Utah St. (which is up to 21 in NET now) and Nevada (which took a tough loss to UNLV last night) make the NCAA Tournament, but that assumes that committee doesn't subconsciously try to screw over the Mountain West.

Moving a bit further down the bracket. Penn St. had already beaten Maryland before this bracket was constructed, but it was baked in as a projected result here at the end of the regular season. The Nittany Lions are close, but have some work to do. North Carolina dropped a seed line by losing to Duke. I doubt the committee makes them one of their First Four Out now.

Seton Hall was the other side of the Providence game yesterday and the metrics loved the blowout road victory. Shaheen Holloway's team now looks like a lock to play in the NIT. Colorado and Utah played essentially what was a play-in game at the Buffaloes came away with the victory. Utah did see some key players return, which could help in the Pac-12 tournament, but the Utes have a lot of work to do at this point. Also, I'm not entirely sold on Florida and Washington State (though the Cougars got a good seed with a similar resume last season). Wake Forest lost to Syracuse, which puts the Demon Deacons really close to falling out of the bracket entirely.

Loyola Marymount dropped from the bracket after losing to BYU in the WCC tournament and seeing its metrics plummet. I'm keeping an eye on BYU and San Francisco, just in case one pulls a big upset on Monday night. (San Francisco beat Santa Clara, which knocked the Broncos out of a home game, but I still think they're safely in.)

There are a lot of No. 1 seeds playing later today, so it's likely the bracket will need another refresh by the evening.

March 4, 2:45 pm NIT Bracket Notes

Before I get to the latest on the NIT bracket, I want to address a few housekeeping issues. The first is that after thinking things through I've come to realize that posting a new bracket in a post every time I make a change is a terrible user experience. (Can't believe no one told me this!) Thus, moving forward I'm going to be updating the bracket on my Current NIT Bracket page and putting the relevant notes in these posts. I would recommend you link to that bracket (unless you find something I say interesting). I can't believe it took me this long to come to that conclusion.

The second housekeeping issue is that even though Sam Houston St. is the No. 1 seed in the WAC tournament, Utah Valley is the conference's regular season champion and holder of the magic ticket to the NIT if it needs it. This is important because UVU is a more "bubbly" team where the NIT is concerned versus SHSU (which I would expect to get an at-large anyways). The reason SHSU is the No. 1 seed in the tournament is because of WACPts, which is a metric designed to reward good wins. Honestly, good for the WAC for trying something different, even if it was a bit confusing this morning. (NCAA spokesperson David Worlock confirmed on Twitter that UVU is the NIT automatic qualifier.)

Alright, now for the changes!

Southern Miss enters the bracket as the automatic bid recipient from the Sun Belt. The Golden Eagles were 83rd in NET prior to this game (though they lost by 17) and have good wins against current projected NIT field companions Vanderbilt and Liberty. While I expect Southern Miss will be on the road in the NIT, they'll be a dangerous opponent. Southern Miss's entrance means that Marshall (at least until tonight) is presumed to be the Sun Belt Conference's automatic NCAA bid and thus I've removed them from the NIT bracket.

New Mexico lost last night at Colorado State. Undefeated until Jan. 3, the Lobos are now 3-7 in their last 10 games, mostly due to bad luck in close games. Still, they've played themselves out of a potential NCAA bid and right into the sweet spot of NIT selection. If UNM flames out early in the MWC tourney they could even be on the road in the NIT. I have them as the first four seed in my current seed list as action plays out today.

Saint Louis beat Dayton at home last night, 65-61. The Billikens are a funny team. Their NET has been hanging around 100 for awhile now (they were 103rd coming into today), but they're 60th in KPI and 86th in SOR (the two "resume" team sheet metrics). Ultimately neither of those will probably be enough to get Saint Louis into the NIT once automatic bids are handed out, but it's an interesting dichotomy.

There is a ton more action today. So I expect this isn't the last time I'll update this bracket today. For instance, Seton Hall has already secured a huge win at Providence that gives the Pirates another Q1 win and a 17-14 overall record heading to Madison Square Garden. While SHU is banged up, they look likely to play in the NIT in Shaheen Holloway's first season on the bench.