Bubble Watch: The ballad of Indiana State
Champ Week is here. Bubble spice will flow. Can the Sycamores survive?
We have a simple request for the 2024 NCAA Tournament selection committee. It is only this: Keep that image of Indiana State in your head.
You know the one. Second half, down big, battling back, Valley title and the bid on the line, playing unbelievable, indefatigable ball. Getting Tucker DeVries' best, most unguardable stuff. Whipping the ball around on the other end, spacing the floor, refusing to go away, good enough to pull it off. That moment when you sent a text or told the person next to you or just held the thought in your head: Man, this game. Both teams deserve this.
It will be hard to maintain this feeling. Indiana State faces many structural disadvantages in the NCAA Tournament selection process, disadvantages that should be taken into account: It is difficult for Valley powers to schedule good high majors. It is difficult to play in a hard and well-coached league that nonetheless contains lots of teams with ugly NETs. It is hard to build momentum and hype throughout a season. It is hard to be a mid-major, full stop.
But among these disadvantages is the latest: time. The Valley's title game is always the Sunday before selection. This gives it its own cachet -- it was by far the biggest game of the day last Sunday -- and as a spectacle it was profound, a great and smooth and high-level hoops game played with the ultimate stakes. The Arch Madness energy poured through the TV. (We were raving about in live chat. We really love Arch Madness.) And then the game ended, and Indiana State lost, and it placed its fate in the hands of a committee that will watch many more teams all week, that will undoubtedly have a difficult time keeping the thought of the Sycamores' basketball in their heads.
The good news for Indiana State, something that is already getting lost in discussion we've seen from certain folks acting as cold-eyed purveyors of hard truths: This is clearly a good team. There is an argument for ISU beyond the usual "I like mid-majors, pick the mid-majors" thing people often (understandably) say this time of year: The Sycamores rank 29th in the NET, 38th in strength of record, 39th in KPI, 43rd at KenPom, and 40th in BPI. These are the metrics on team sheets. These are the things the committee uses to help itself understand a team's quality beyond its ability to be a high-major that schedules essentially whomever and however it wants.
This is why the numbers exist: So you can look at big Robbie Avila running the show out top and think "Man, Indiana State seems good," and then notice that Indiana State only got to play one Quadrant 1 nonconference opponent, and then look at some metrics to help you understand that what you were seeing was real. (And you can also, as Will Warren notes here, note all of the teams considered safely in the field who also have just one Quadrant 1 win. Like Dayton. Or Auburn.)
We really hope the committee can manage this. It won't be easy. Indiana State will face stiff competition for its place. Bid thieves will do their work. High-major teams will use their conference tournaments, laden with big opportunities, to push on. The rhetoric will shift -- has already shifted. The basketball to come will overwhelm the basketball that was, and Indiana State will be stuck sitting around in Terre Haute, powerless, trying not to freak out about Butler beating Xavier, or St. Joe's winning the A10 tournament, or whatever else this wild week will throw up.
It sucks, but it's part of the deal. We just hope the committee can hold up the other end of the bargain, which is that when a team is as obviously, objectively good as Indiana State -- when it plays like it did Sunday, even in defeat, even on Sunday, when it plays like it has all season -- it should get in the NCAA Tournament.
Today’s Bubble Math:
Automatic bids from non-Bubble Watch (one-bid) leagues: 22
Locks: 33
Should be in: 7
Work to do: 15
Champ Week Special Edition Housekeeping, or: the plan for this week:
We’ll have fresh Bubble Watch updates out to you Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. (There aren’t really bubble games today [Tuesday] to justify a Wednesday morning update.) The file won’t be live, because the vast majority of readers read this via their inbox, and there’s no good way to push live updates to folks’ email all day without being obnoxious. So we’ll do our Bubble Watch publishing all at once in the morning, instead.
We will also have live chat threads every day. Beginning Wednesday, we’ll post a live chat thread daily, which is your home to discuss the hoops with us and your fellow Buzzer readers, who are extremely cool and friendly and smart. (Comments sections are also obviously open all day as well. We see it all!) We’ll also obviously have a chat for Sunday, especially the selection show. It’s been a great addition to watching along all winter. We’ve got our own little community going over here, away from Twitter and the rest, and it’ll be super fun to have in hand all month.
Bubble Watch will be at the ACC tournament this weekend. That won’t affect most of you that much (possible additional posts aside) but if you’re a subscriber in the building holler and come say hi.
Thanks to all of you. To those of you who just read the posts and never interact in comments or chat, to the most active among you, to folks who signed up last June and those who signed up this week, and to everyone in between: Thank you for being here and making the time spent on this endeavor so rewarding.
OK, normal housekeeping:
Some email providers impose limits on email length. This is a long file, so if your email cuts off, be sure to click through to the site itself to read it all.
There are almost certainly typos in the below copy. We are our only editor; this is a one-man show. If you spot factual mistakes or just think we should consider a team not on the page, get in touch in the comments or shoot me a note.
NET and SOR are always current as of the previous day. Records are always up to date. Thanks as ever to Warren Nolan for his immensely helpful site.
ACC
A few things that occurred to us about North Carolina's incredibly impressive win over Duke, beyond the headline of Cormac Ryan's ice-cold individual performance:
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