Mississippi State teams battling for NCAA Tournament position
Heading into Tuesday night’s showdown with No. 3 Florida, No. 22 Mississippi State remains firmly in the NCAA Tournament with a chance to make a jump after this evening.
The Bulldogs were projected as a No. 7 seed in ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s latest report on Tuesday with the analyst believing the Bulldogs could be in the Midwest Bracket. In those projections, Lunardi has State matching up with Utah State in Milwaukee with a potential date with projected Big Ten Champion Purdue as a two seed.
The winner of that matchup would meet in Indianapolis for the Sweet 16. Also in that Region are No. 1 seed Alabama and No. 11 Vanderbilt.
State (17-6, 5-5 SEC) enters Tuesday night’s game with a NET ranking at No. 30. The Bulldogs have a 5-5 record in Quad 1 games and are 9-6 in games within the Quad1/2 lines while being a perfect 8-0 in games within the Quad 3/4 range. Tuesday presents another Quad 1 chance for the Bulldogs and would be the best win of the season. State currently doesn’t have a win over a team ranked inside the top 20 of the NET.
In the latest projections, the SEC has an incredible 13 teams in the tournament with another team, Arkansas, listed as the last team out of the tournament. Only LSU and South Carolina are not at least on the bubble inside the conference. Alabama (1 seed), Auburn (1), Tennessee (1) Florida (2 ) and Texas A&M (2) are all currently either a one or two seed with Kentucky (4) and Ole Miss (5) also top five seeds.
The current setup would be a historic one for the conference.
Women have work to do to seal up spot
On the women’s side of things, an impressive group is also in position to make some noise in postseason. Charlie Crème still has State in the mix as the Bulldogs have yet to actually hit the bubble, but the team is also in search of another signature win or two to solidify their standing.
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MSU has fallen a spot since last week and is now a No. 9 seed in a friendly Region. The Bulldogs are in the Birmingham Region which would be a great spot for a Sweet 16 matchup for State fans. Getting there would be the issue as Crème has the team paired with Notre Dame for the second time in three years.
The projected ACC Champion is in the running for a No. 1 seed and projected to host State along with another familiar foe in Creighton. The Bulldogs and Blue Jays played each other two seasons ago in South Bend with State coming out with a victory and earning a showdown with the Irish in the second round where they fell just short.
MSU (17-8, 4-7 SEC) sits at No. 34 in the NET but just 2-7 in Quad 1 games and 4-8 in Quad 1/2 matchups. The team doesn’t have many anchor losses as they’ve taken care of business against the bottom level competition with a 13-0 mark against Quad 3/4.
The Bulldogs’ best win to this point is Oklahoma who is No. 16 in the NET and State still has games against No. 3 Texas and No. 22 Vanderbilt. The latter is a matchup coming in Nashville on Thursday night at 8 p.m.
