‘Underneath the microscope’: Bracketologists give their opinion on Wichita State

Wichita State’s 68-60 loss at Memphis on Thursday maybe felt like a significant blow to Shocker fans who hope to see their team receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

While high-profile bracketologists like ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm both moved WSU out of their fields, they were actually in the minority of bracketologists across the country. According to BracketMatrix.com, the Shockers were actually included in more March Madness projections (39) than left out (25) of the 64 brackets that updated on Friday following WSU’s latest loss.

More encouraging news for WSU is that of those 39 brackets, only six had the Shockers playing a First Four game in Dayton.

But there’s no denying the Shockers (22-8) are perilously close to the NCAA Tournament bubble, which makes Sunday’s 3 p.m. regular season-finale against Tulsa at Koch Arena a must-win situation. Senior day festivities will take place after the game for WSU’s lone senior, Jaime Echenique.

While Tulsa (21-9) will be playing for an outright American Athletic Conference championship, WSU will be motivated not only for its NCAA Tournament status but also a win and a loss by Memphis at Houston on Sunday would give the Shockers the fourth seed and first-round bye at next week’s conference tournament in Fort Worth.

“We’re back in a tough position now,” WSU sophomore Dexter Dennis said after the Memphis loss. “Now we go back home on Sunday and it’s no question, we’ve got to win. And then the conference tournament, we’ll probably have to make some noise there as well. From here on out, we just have to win.”

So what else does WSU have to do in the final two weeks to feel good about its chances?

The Eagle spoke with two bracketologists, and they both had the same assessment: WSU must take care of business at home against Tulsa on Sunday, then register at least one quality win in the American Athletic Conference Tournament next week in Fort Worth, Texas to give itself a chance for an at-large selection.

But even in that scenario, WSU would be sweating out Selection Sunday. To truly feel confident about its chance, WSU would need to beat Tulsa on Sunday and then advance far enough in the AAC Tournament to pick up at least one more quality win, a short list that would only include Houston, Cincinnati or Memphis, according to Rocco Miller, who runs The Bracketeer. Miller is hesitant to set a barometer such as three more wins for WSU because it depends more on the quality of the wins WSU picks up along the way.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter how far you advance, it’s actually more important to talk about who you play,” Miller said. “If there ends up being upsets, then beating those teams really isn’t going to do much for their resume. Beating a team like Cincy or Houston or Memphis is their best opportunity. But then it’s going to depend a lot on what other teams do as well.

“It’s so close right now that Wichita State and all of these other teams are going to be put underneath the microscope for the last couple of spots.”

The teams most commonly grouped with WSU on the bubble are Stanford, Texas, Cincinnati, Utah State, Richmond, Purdue and North Carolina State. The Shockers actually stack up favorably against those teams in the advanced metrics the selection committee looks at, which consist of the NET, KPI, ESPN’s strength of record and BPI and ratings developed by Jeff Sagarin and Ken Pomeroy.

Among those eight bubble teams, WSU owns the second-best average (40.2) in the six metrics and remain the only team from that group that can say it has a winning record against Quadrant 1 and 2 opponents (9-8) and no loss in a Quadrant 3 or 4 game.

All of that makes for a solid postseason resume, but does it cover up WSU’s most glaring hole: the lack of a marquee win?

“Honestly, I think they kind of cancel each other out since there is no marquee win to point to,” said Erik Haslam, who runs the analytics website Haslametrics.com. “I think the selection committee tends to be forgiving to bad losses, especially if they happened early in the year.

“The question for WSU is if the selection committee is going to take account of Wichita State’s performance in beating Oklahoma State by 17 on the road, beating South Carolina by 23, beating Ole Miss by 20? That’s some pretty decent competition that they beat pretty thoroughly. Will that resonate with the committee?

Haslametrics features performance-based analytics, which rates WSU very favorably. The formula has WSU with the 29th-best record quality and views the Shockers the quality of a No. 9 seed. But Haslam points out that he is using his own numbers to judge teams, numbers that will be different from what the selection committee uses come next Sunday.

When viewing WSU from that lens, Haslam suspects the team’s NET ranking (now 48th) will be a problem.

“Another thing that is working against them is the quadrants,” Haslam said. “They’re 2-6 in Q1 games and that’s damaging enough, then you take a look at the two wins they have (at UConn and at Oklahoma State) and they’re all the way at the tail-end of the quadrant. I think that might end up hurting them.”

One final thing both bracketologists said for WSU fans to be aware of when looking at bracket projections is the looming threat of bid thieves, teams that would not have made the NCAA Tournament without winning their conference tournament this weekend or next.

Miller said there is on average 2.4 bid thieves per year, meaning the projected cut line in current brackets is likely to be at least one or two teams off.

So not only is WSU competing against the other bubble teams listed above in the next 10 days, but the Shockers also will be rooting for the heavy favorites to win their conference tournaments.

That means WSU fans should be rooting heavily for San Diego State (Mountain West), East Tennessee State (Southern) and Dayton (Atlantic 10) to win their conference tournaments and hope no middle-of-the-pack team catches fire and is the surprise winner in the American, ACC, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC or West Coast.

“It’s really dicey right now for Wichita State, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see like a Wichita State-Purdue play-in game in Dayton,” Haslam said. “I think with what the committee is looking at, Wichita State is probably in the play-in game right now or just outside of the field.”

Tulsa at Wichita State

Records: Tulsa 21-9, 13-4 AAC; WSU 22-8, 10-7 AAC

When: 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Koch Arena (10,506), Wichita

TV: CBS Sports Network

Radio: KEYN, 103.7 FM

Series: WSU leads 69-62 (39-23 in Wichita)

Projected starters

Coach: Frank Haith, sixth season, 116-75

Coach: Gregg Marshall, 13th season, 330-121

This story was originally published March 7, 2020 at 5:00 AM.

Taylor Eldridge

The Wichita Eagle

316-268-6270

Wichita State athletics beat reporter. Bringing you closer to the Shockers you love and inside the sports you love to watch.