Seed List and Field Ranking - 02/23

It's been a fascinating week of Men's NCAA Basketball, as reflected in my most recent seed list and field ranking (or S-Curve).   You can find the listing below the analysis below.




Here are a few of the more intriguing stories from the past week:

• Entering play on Saturday, 3 of the projected #1 Seeds (Baylor, Gonzaga and San Diego State) entered play a combined 77-2 on the season.  On Saturday, they went a combined 0-3.  Despite those 3  #1 seeds losing, each remains on the 1 Seed line.  Baylor remains the #1 over all, but Kansas closed the gap by beating Baylor, at Baylor.  Each has beaten the other at their place.  The difference?  Baylor is 10-1 against Quad 1 opponents and 6-1 against the top tier of Quad 1.  Kansas is 11-3 and 7-3 respectively.   Would love to see the matter settled with a rubber match on a neutral court in the Big 12 Tournament title game.
• It was a roller coast week for teams on the bubble.  Three teams who were not in the field charged in this week from seemingly no where.  
• UCLA:  Just a couple weeks ago the Bruins were floating around .500 in the PAC 12 and were sitting around 100 in the NET rankings and not even being discussed.  That was just before a starting a 5 game winning streak started with a huge road win at Arizona and culminated in dramatic fashion yesterday with a come from behind win at then PAC 12 Leader Colorado.  The Bruins are now 10-5 in the PAC 12 and just a half game behind this weeks new leader, Arizona State.  They have moved up 22 spots in the NET Rankings, and are now in my projected field as one of the last 4 in.  With 5 Quad 1 wins, including 3 against the NET Top 15 (2 on the road) and 2 more Q1 games remaining, and match-up Thursday against Arizona State at home, they have an opportunity to continue the meteoric ascent.
• Providence:   Entered February on a 3 game losing streak and sitting at .500 in the stacked Big East Conference, but a brutal schedule ahead of them, and carrying 4 Quad 3/4 losses from November.  After two big wins to open the month at Butler, and at home over Creighton, they started showing up on some people's watch lists.  They then dropped 3 straight games, fell below .500 in the conference, and again fell of the radar.  Since then though, Since then they have beaten conference leader Seton Hall, fellow bubble team Georgetown on their home floor, and completed a season sweep of Marquette.   With the help of a number of bubble teams imploding during the same time, Providence has surged into the field with a hard to ignore 7 Quad 1 wins, including 3 against the top tier, and two of those, on the road.
• NC State:  NC State had been hanging around the outside of the field for a couple weeks.  Straddled with an unusually weak ACC Conference beyond the top 3 teams, and lacking a signature win,  the Wolf Pack was finding it hard pressed to crack the field against teams getting more opportunities to get Q1 wins.  That all changed this past week when NC State hammered Duke by 22 points.  With their first Q1 win against a NET Top 10 team, and 5th Q1 win overall, NC State finally had the signature win they needed to get into the field.  While they failed Saturday to extend the moment when they lost at home to Florida State, the imploding bubble below them kept them in the field this week just one spot away from being one of the Last 4 In.
• Related to the unforeseen rise of the teams above into the field was an implosion of teams right above and below the bubble cut line.  Here are a couple of the more compelling examples
• Purdue One of the most schizophrenic teams I have seen this season.  They have blown out tournament level compeition like Michigan State (by 29), Iowa (by 36) Virginia (by 29) and Wisconsin (by 19).  Yet were only 14-12 heading into a crucial week this week and went on to lose at Wisconsin and then at home to Michigan, dropping them to 14-14 overall and 7-10 in the Big 10.  They aren't dead yet, but one more conference loss likely puts them in a position of having to win the Big Ten Tourney to get in.
• Georgetown snuck into the conversation, and some people's projected field (including mine) after last Saturday's huge road win at Butler, and losses by Arkansas, Purdue and Minnesota.  They then proceeded to lose back to back games this week to fellow bubble team Providence on their home floor, and at DePaul yesterday.  Georgetown now finds itself with 10 Quad 1 losses, and 4 games below .500 in the Big East.  They still have chance to get back in the discussion, with 3 Quad 1 games remaining.  But they will likely have to run the gauntlet of winning at Marquette Wednesday, then at home against Xavier, at Creighton and home against Villanova.