I appreciate this community bearing with me as I am sorta like the groundhog coming out this time of year.
When I started bubble watch on this site 19 years ago it was to fill a need between a lackluster espn CBB coverage and no one talking about an emerging Aggie basketball team that I thought could make the tourney. Thank you Joe Jones and BCG for a magical 8 game winning streak to sneak in as a 12 and prove me right.
Now there is X and with it hundreds of bracketology guys (some better than others) that do a great job projecting stuff. I still like to give my take on what I think but let's face it the need is not as great.
Enough about that, for A&M this year… Saturday was a great day. Not just getting a road conference win but Texas Tech taking out Houston, Iowa State, Michigan State, Florida, Kansas and Marquette all losing (and Texas/OU both winning by 30 help the computer numbers)
I thought going into SEC play that 7-11 was enough to get in and I still think that. Now sitting at 6-3 I think we are just 1 win away from officially being a lock, but in all likliehood this is a seed watch kinda year and not a bubble watch- and Bobinator has done a great job already filling that void.
A&M has 2 seed like resume numbers 9 in KPI, 12 in SOR and 7 in WAB… and that was entering Saturday, expect those to get much better tomorrow with the carnage around us.
The predictive numbers are less rosy- 17, 16 and 19 are more 4/5 territory.
Blend them together and then start counting up how many quad 1 wins there are, the lack of bad losses and this feels like a solidly 3 seed resume as of February 1. Still lots of games to go however.
I agree with bobinator so I won't make my own list right now but I will say I think only 3 teams are not really catchable barring a major injury- Auburn, Alabama and Duke.
From there it's relatively close between Iowa State, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Marquette, Texas A&M, Purdue, Houston, Oregon, Kansas, Wisconsin for the last 1 seed through the first 3 4 seeds. Possibly in that order but you can make arguments to move teams up a slot or 2.
I will closely analyze the last 10 in, first 10 out as we get closer to March but unless things go horribly wrong the next 2 weeks you won't see A&M anywhere near that conversation.
Lastly this won't be perfect but just a general guide of what the results in the next month may mean plus or minus a seed line
9-0 or 8-1 1 seed
7-2 2 seed
6-3 3 seed
5-4 4 seed
4-5 6 seed
3-6 7 seed
2-7 9 seed
1-8 10 seed
0-9 NIT 2 seed
When I started bubble watch on this site 19 years ago it was to fill a need between a lackluster espn CBB coverage and no one talking about an emerging Aggie basketball team that I thought could make the tourney. Thank you Joe Jones and BCG for a magical 8 game winning streak to sneak in as a 12 and prove me right.
Now there is X and with it hundreds of bracketology guys (some better than others) that do a great job projecting stuff. I still like to give my take on what I think but let's face it the need is not as great.
Enough about that, for A&M this year… Saturday was a great day. Not just getting a road conference win but Texas Tech taking out Houston, Iowa State, Michigan State, Florida, Kansas and Marquette all losing (and Texas/OU both winning by 30 help the computer numbers)
I thought going into SEC play that 7-11 was enough to get in and I still think that. Now sitting at 6-3 I think we are just 1 win away from officially being a lock, but in all likliehood this is a seed watch kinda year and not a bubble watch- and Bobinator has done a great job already filling that void.
A&M has 2 seed like resume numbers 9 in KPI, 12 in SOR and 7 in WAB… and that was entering Saturday, expect those to get much better tomorrow with the carnage around us.
The predictive numbers are less rosy- 17, 16 and 19 are more 4/5 territory.
Blend them together and then start counting up how many quad 1 wins there are, the lack of bad losses and this feels like a solidly 3 seed resume as of February 1. Still lots of games to go however.
I agree with bobinator so I won't make my own list right now but I will say I think only 3 teams are not really catchable barring a major injury- Auburn, Alabama and Duke.
From there it's relatively close between Iowa State, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Marquette, Texas A&M, Purdue, Houston, Oregon, Kansas, Wisconsin for the last 1 seed through the first 3 4 seeds. Possibly in that order but you can make arguments to move teams up a slot or 2.
I will closely analyze the last 10 in, first 10 out as we get closer to March but unless things go horribly wrong the next 2 weeks you won't see A&M anywhere near that conversation.
Lastly this won't be perfect but just a general guide of what the results in the next month may mean plus or minus a seed line
9-0 or 8-1 1 seed
7-2 2 seed
6-3 3 seed
5-4 4 seed
4-5 6 seed
3-6 7 seed
2-7 9 seed
1-8 10 seed
0-9 NIT 2 seed