Despite tailspin, these projections still have Wichita State in the NCAA Tournament
It’s been a rough past month for the Wichita State men’s basketball team, which has gone from nationally ranked to losers in five of its past seven games.
Despite how hopeless things felt following Sunday’s 33-point loss at Houston, hope for WSU to earn an at-large bid into March’s NCAA Tournament is far from lost. In fact, the Shockers remain a near unanimous choice by bracketologists as an at-large team with either a No. 10 or No. 11 seed.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Shockers projected as a No. 10 seed, while CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm has them as a No. 11 seed — both just off a “First Four” trip to Dayton. But WSU is a popular pick by many as one of the last four teams in the field, including by Rocco Miller, who makes his predictions at The Bracketeer.
Miller views WSU as a divisive team, but one that can help its case if it gets back to its winning ways starting with Thursday night’s road game at Central Florida.
“I think if we were in the selection committee room right now, the room would be pretty divided on Wichita State,” Miller said. “The positive side is that you’re looking at a team that doesn’t really have a bad loss. But on the other side of the coin, they don’t have those wins. The only tournament teams that would be inside the bubble would be Oklahoma and then maybe VCU.”
For the second straight year, the NCAA Tournament selection committee will examine teams by using the NET — a results-oriented team-ranking metric that combines wins, scoring margin, efficiency and the location of games.
Entering Thursday’s game, WSU and its 17-6 record was ranked No. 50 in the NET. Currently the Shockers are propped up by a winning record against teams from the top-two quadrants (7-6) and no damaging losses in Quadrants 3 or 4.
“That helps because most of the teams that are getting compared to Wichita State has a black eye or two,” Miller said.
But a lot of those teams have at least one marquee win, which is what WSU lacks at this point in the season. Road wins at Oklahoma State (NET of 71) and Connecticut (NET of 75) are teetering on the edge of a Quadrant 1 win, while home wins over VCU (Net of 42) and Oklahoma (NET of 45) are the other highlights.
Miller thinks that means WSU has to win out at home (against Tulane, South Florida, Temple and Tulsa) and then pick up as many road wins as possible from the trips to UCF, Cincinnati, SMU and Memphis. Miller thinks a win at Cincinnati or Memphis could potentially seal a bid for the Shockers.
“The most important thing for Wichita State fans to realize is that their team is going to control their destiny,” Miller said. “They’re either going to play their way into the field or out of it. They have a couple more opportunities for impressive wins at Cincinnati and at Memphis, then the rest of those games are take-care-of-business kind of games. If Wichita State is playing like a tournament team, they’ll win those. And if not, they’ll fall short.”
The selection committee no longer uses the last 10 games as a metric and treats the beginning, middle and end of the season as equals. That’s good news for WSU, which was certainly playing like a tournament team during its 15-1 start and then anything but in its current 2-5 slide.
Miller says it’s still important for WSU not to leave it up to chance with uneven play to close the season.
“I think the way that you’re playing lately will still impact a lot of those discussions in the room,” Miller said. “I think Wichita needs to focus on staying in that top 50 of the NET, especially not being in a Power Five conference, and then go out and get some more road wins and add some meat on the bone.
“There will be more chances at the conference tournament, but what we’re seeing is the committee wrapping up their work earlier and earlier in the week. A lot of these decisions about who’s selected and who’s not gets done early in the process. So it’s in Wichita State’s best interest to finish strong and then pick up one of those wins at Memphis or Cincinnati.”
Should WSU be rooting for teams like VCU (NET of 42), SMU (NET of 73) and UConn (NET of 75)? If VCU moves into the top 30, then it would count as a Q1 win, while the same is true for road games at SMU and UConn if they remain in the top 75.
Miller said it would help, but marginally.
“Really the first thing they’re going to be looking at is teams that you beat that are in the field,” Miller said. “And right now, that’s just OU and VCU. But once you get into that secondary category, then that’s when they’re going to start looking at that stuff. It would be nice to have Oklahoma State and UConn as Q1 wins. It could only help.
“If they can get back to the No. 7 to No. 10 seed lines, then that’s just going to be extra fluff for them. But with where Wichita State is today, being a First Four team more than likely, the committee is going to be doing major deep dives and every result is going to be heavily scrutinized.”
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