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The Most Intriguing Bubble Profiles: Breaking down Wichita State, Syracuse, Clemson and more

Long Beach State v Wichita State

WICHITA, KS - NOVEMBER 13: Guard Daishon Smith of the Wichita State Shockers drives in for a basket against the Long Beach State 49ers during the first half on November 13, 2016 at Charles Koch Arena in Wichita, Kansas. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)

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Wichita State (and Illinois State): The Shockers are, once against, going to be the most interesting bubble team, and test case for the Selection Committee, come Selection Sunday.

Here’s the nuts and bolts of it: The Shockers, by every measure that we use, are a good team, good enough to merit an at-large bid. They rank 13th in KenPom and 16th in Sagarin -- both of which are predictive metrics -- as well as 43rd in KPI and 45th in RPI -- both of which are results-based metrics. They’re 26-4 on the season and they’ve been napalming everyone they come across in the Missouri Valley of late. They beat then-undefeated Illinois State by 41 points earlier this month and Northern Iowa, who is third in the league and who had won eight of their last nine games entering the game, by 29 points on Saturday.

It’s also Wichita State, a program that was in the Final Four in 2013, won 35 straight games in 2014 and has one of the most in-demand head coaches in the game in Gregg Marshall.

The problem, however, is that they haven’t actually done anything of note this season. Their best win on the year -- their only top 95 RPI win on the season -- came against league foe Illinois State. The Redbirds are 34th in the RPI, but they have the exact same problem as Wichita State: the Shockers are their only top 75 win.

Wichita State’s four losses on the season are to Louisville on a neutral, Michigan State on a neutral, Oklahoma State at home and at Illinois State. They don’t have a bad loss, but the only thing they’ve done outside of their league is beat a bad Oklahoma team and win at Colorado State, who is the leader of a mediocre Mountain West conference. (The difference, as it relates to this conversation, with Illinois State is that they have two sub-100 losses and also lost to San Francisco.)

Let’s assume that the Shockers end up winning out until the final of the MVC tournament, where they fall to Illinois State, a best-case scenario if they’re going to need an at-large bid. They’ll be 30-5 on the season without a single bad loss on their résumé, but they’ll only have one top 50 win and, depending on what Colorado State does down the stretch, that may end up being their only top 100 win.

Wichita State was in a similar situation last season, the difference being that they did have one elite win -- Utah -- while also have three bad losses to their name. That year was also different in the sense that there was quite a bit more competition for the Shockers to deal with. The lack of tournament caliber teams in the Atlantic 10, Mountain West, American and across the mid-major ranks has depleted this year’s crop of bubble teams. Simply not having bad losses may be enough this year.

That said, it’s also important to note that the reveal of the top 16 seeds 10 days ago slotted Gonzaga as the fourth No. 1 seed despite being undefeated. The committee showed us they value the presence of good wins over the lack of bad losses.

The Missouri Valley title game is eight days before Selection Sunday. Whoever isn’t holding the trophy at the end of Arch Madness is going to have a long, stressful wait for Sunday.
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The Bottom of the ACC (Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Clemson): Given the depth of the ACC this season and the lack of potential at-large candidates outside the power conferences, we’re getting some crazy profiles coming out of the bottom of that league.

Let’s start with the Orange. The bad: they lost to a bad UConn team, they were blown out at Boston College, and they lost to St. John’s at home by 33 points. There is no high-major team with that collection of awful losses to their name, and it doesn’t help that Jim Boeheim’s club has nine more losses to add to the mix. They have some good wins – Virginia, Florida State, Wake Forest, Miami – but they’ve only won two games away from the Carrier Dome: at Clemson and at N.C. State, who fired their coach three days ago. With FSU and UVA careening – combined, they’ve lost five straight games – neither of those wins look at good as they did two weeks ago. The Orange are 16-12, but they get Duke at home this week and Louisville on the road this weekend. Those are season-changers.

Georgia Tech is similar, with wins over North Carolina, Florida State and Notre Dame. But they also won at VCU – which is now a top 30 road win – but prior to Tuesday night, when they lost to N.C. State at home, their worst loss came against an Ohio team that looked like they could win the MAC before their best player went down with a season-ending injury. The Yellow Jackets don’t have the same volume of good wins, however, and one good road win doesn’t change the fact that most of their best work came at home. The bigger concern is that they had a résumé built around not having many bad losses amongst their 12 losses, and that changed.

Which brings us to Clemson. The Tigers are, after yet another heart-breaking loss on Tuesday, 14-13 overall and 4-11 in the ACC, which is not the kind of record that you typically see out of an at-large team. But they’ve won at South Carolina, they swept Wake Forest and they beat UNC Wilmington. All told, they have nine top 100 wins, four of which came away from home, and just one of their losses came outside the top 85. They need to win all three of their remaining games -- Florida State, N.C. State, at Boston College -- but those are all winnable. A 4-11 ACC record sounds bad, but a 7-11 ACC record, with a couple of wins in the ACC tournament, may just be enough this year.

Middle Tennessee: Like some of the other mid-majors on this list, Middle Tennessee State will have a long, long wait until Selection Sunday if they don’t find a way to win the Conference USA automatic bid. But unlike those other teams, the Blue Raiders do have some positives on their profile: They’ve beaten UNC Wilmington on a neutral. They beat Vanderbilt at home. They mollywhopped Ole Miss in Oxford. They beat Belmont in Nashville. The kicker for Kermit Davis’ program is that MTSU will have at least five losses on Selection Sunday if they need an automatic bid, only one will be a “good” loss. Tennessee State got them at home. Georgia State got them at home. They lost at UTEP, who only recently climbed their way out of the 300s in the RPI.

Alabama: South Carolina has been the most generous team in college basketball this season, handing out quality wins to bubble teams all over the place. Clemson got their best win courtesy of the Gamecocks. So did Arkansas, and so did Alabama, who went into Columbia and knocked off SC in four overtimes. As of this moment, Alabama is still on the wrong side of the bubble, but they still have games to play. Win these four games -- Georgia, at Texas A&M, Ole Miss, at Tennessee -- and suddenly Avery Johnson looks like he has an NCAA tournament team on his hands.