SEC Bubble Watch

(Image via SJU.edu)

With only about a month left in the regular season, my favorite part of the season is officially upon us. The Bubble Watch portion. While Joe Lunardi keeps people informed throughout the season on various brackets of sorts, as we get down to the end of the schedule everyone seemingly tries their hand at this whole “bracketology” thing. Lunardi remains the mainstream bracket projector, but many people don’t know that he is just an average bracketologist. According to BracketMatrix.com, Lunardi ranks as the 35th best bracketologist out of a list 67 veteran bracket makers. If you want more precise accuracy, I recommend trying out USA Today’s Patrick Stevens, or CBS’s Jeff Borzello.

Last year, I tried my hand at the whole bracket making thing and to my surprise I correctly picked 67/68 teams in the field, and 58/68 within one seed line. Not fantastic, but not bad either. This year I’m going to do a running watch during the last month of the regular season that has a main focus on the SEC (because, hey, Kentucky). So without further adieu, let’s take a look at the how the SEC is shaping up for postseason play:

Locks: Florida (21-2), Kentucky (18-5)

These two teams are clearly the class of the SEC and almost every metric agrees with that. Florida and UK rank 4th and 5th in ESPN’s BPI rankings, respectively, and they both rank in the top 10 in RPI (which for some reason is still used by the selection committee). The two teams will face off twice over the next couple of weeks, where a split in meetings seems likely. Florida is currently locked in a battle for a number 1-seed, and the farthest that they probably could drop over the next month is to a 3-seed. Kentucky, however, is in a bit more fragile situation. The Cats boast no bad losses, but on the flip side there is a dearth of quality wins. Louisville seems to be righting the ship, but after that there best win was in Columbia against Missouri. If there is a bright side for Kentucky’s case, though, no team has more RPI top 50 wins than the Cats (UL, UT, Mizzou, and Providence). The most likely scenario for UK is a seed between 3 and 5, with an outside shot at a 2-seed if they can win 2 of 3 against the Gators.

Right Side of the Bubble: Tennessee (14-8), Missouri (16-7)

You can argue this, but as of right now both of these teams would probably get a bid. At first glance, you may look at Tennessee’s record and ask how but when you look at their profile it makes much more sense. The Vols only have one sub-100 loss (an inexplicable home game against TAM), but to counter that they boast one of the best wins in the country; a 35-point drumming against Virginia (KenPom rates UVA as the #7 in the nation). Their strength of schedule ranks 16th in the country, and their RPI is 48th so the computer likes them as well. Down the stretch I like this team to solidify their bid even more as they have a chance to get two quality wins this week before their schedule opens up quite a bit.

Missouri, though, is on a different path than the Vols. After a hot start that was helped by a plethora of close wins, it seems  Mizzou has hit the proverbial wall. They’ve lost three in a row after grabbing a rare road win in Fayetteville and now stand at 4-6 in the pedestrian Southeastern Conference. The back half of their SEC schedule is much lighter than the first half, which can be both good and bad for a bubble squad. The upside is that it is a chance for a team with a decent profile to pad their record and that they can be seen as the “hot” team in the conference. The downside, though, is that outside of a couple of games vs. Tennessee there isn’t much of a chance for them to get a quality win, but there are a heck of a lot of chances to get a bad loss. Mizzou can’t afford anymore bad losses and unfortunately for them I’m not sure if they can avoid them.

Wrong Side of the Bubble: LSU (15-7), Ole Miss (16-7)

LSU, to me, is perhaps the most interesting case in the SEC. They have a boatload of talent, they’ve shown flashes of that talent throughout the season, but their resume is very odd. On one hand, they have an RPI of 61 and an SOS of 85 (not good), and on another hand they have three RPI top-50 victories including a top-notch win over Kentucky. Oh, and then there’s the three losses to sub-100 ball clubs. That’s two bad things to one good thing, hence the “outside looking in” title. You want more bad news for this LSU team? Five of their next seven games are on the road, including touts with Arkansas, Kentucky and Florida, where road wins are incredibly hard to come by. At this point, I’m not counting on LSU to be in contention come Selection Sunday.

Ole Miss is probably the final team in the SEC that deserves bubble conversation at this point (sorry, Arkansas). They only have one bad loss to Mississippi State, but even that was a road game against their biggest rival. They have an RPI of 53 which isn’t terrible, either. The problem for Ole Miss, though, is that they don’t really have any good wins (a home win vs. Mizzou is their best). The good news is that they have upcoming home tilts with both Kentucky and Florida, and win against either of them would give a huge boost to their tourney hopes. If the Rebels can go 6-2 for the rest of the season with a win against either UK or Florida, then I think the Rebels would have a serious case to be made.

It should be fun to keep up with this as the season wanes on.

@BWardKSR