While every night might not be as laced with intrigue as this past weekend was for college basketball’s bubble watch, there are always games to be played that impact the teams battling for a spot in the NCAA tournament field.
But while the pickings were a little slim in terms of teams on the bubble, with most of the major teams either already in the tournament—Virginia, Iowa State and Oklahoma—or having long since seen their tournament hopes disappear—Virginia Tech, Boston College and Syracuse—there were a couple of matchups that could impact the March Madness field, with perhaps the biggest game coming from the Texas Longhorns.
What seems like a lifetime removed from its days as a Top 10 team in the first month of the season, Texas has struggled through conference play and sits entrenched in a battle to claim a spot in the field of 68.
After four consecutive losses, all by single digits against ranked opponents, the Longhorns were reeling and looking for a boost to their resume that most experts agreed had the team on the outside looking in on the tournament.
With a 2-9 record against Top 25 teams coming into its game Monday night, Texas had an uphill battle against No. 14 Baylor. On the other side of the coin, the Bears were on a four-game winning streak, including a nine-point road win against Iowa State, and looked to be gathering steam for the postseason.
The script flipped Monday, though, as the Longhorns, who trailed by as many as 10 points in the final seven minutes, battled back late and forced overtime. Following an ugly brawl in the extra period, Texas’ Isaiah Taylor hit a game-winning runner with 4.8 seconds left, lifting Texas to a 61-59 victory and giving it its most impressive win of the season.
With no bad losses but no great wins on its resume, Texas desperately needed a victory seeing as things weren’t looking great for a tournament bid. Wins against Connecticut and West Virginia looked impressive at the time, but a poor year for the Huskies has dropped that win's stock significantly, while the Mountaineers have stayed strong.
But a win against a Baylor, a team that is considered a likely top-four seed by ESPN's Joe Lunardi, stands out and finally has Texas into the field, according to most bracketologists. The regular season is coming to a close, and the Longhorns have themselves in a good position at the right time.
Jerry Palm of CBS Sports pointed out how much Texas needed the win to solidify its spot in the field:
A game against Kansas State stands between the Longhorns and the Big 12 tournament this Saturday. If Texas does manage to lose to the Wildcats, it could be a blemish that pushes the team back to the wrong side of the bubble. However, the win over the Bears should be enough at the end of the day to keep the team in the field for good.
Not everybody has Texas in the field right now, including Lunardi, but the debate is being had, which a better place than where the Longhorns were two days ago:
In terms of other bubble action Monday night, there weren’t games that directly influenced teams on the bubble but some did set up potential bubble-bursters in the conference tournaments.
In the Southland Conference, Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston State both picked up big wins against overmatched conference opponents and look to be comfortably in charge of the conference. But only one of these two teams will be able to claim the automatic bid the conference tournament provides, and thus the other will have to hope for an at-large bid.
Neither team has any strong wins, with Stephen F. Austin’s resume looking like the more impressive of the two, but it wouldn’t be a shock if the Lumberjacks fell to the Bearkats in the conference final and slipped into the field as an at-large bid.
The regular-season finale between the two teams could very well decide if either can make the field as an at-large bid, but if one does, that would leave a team from a major conference left to watch from home.
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/18K61tP
via IFTTT March 03, 2015 at 07:51AM
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