Bubble Watch?

[BullyPulpit]

ESPN is starting to buy into the possibility of USF making it as an at-large. Of course, it will take what most of us have been saying all along and that is the Bulls win out and lose to a good team in the conference tourney, most likely requiring that loss to be in the finals. This is the type of positive press that puts the idea into the universe and hopefully gains some traction. Understand that a mid major like USF making it to the tournament with its current metrics would be fairly unprecedented. The closest example was a Rutgers team, but they played in a major conference. 

This week, South Florida broke into the men's AP Top 25. With good reason. Anyone who watched the Bulls defeat Florida Atlantic and SMU on consecutive Sundays knows USF is playing like a top-25 team.

Amir Abdur-Rahim's team has won 13 straight. At 21-5 and 14-1 in American play, the Bulls have already clinched at least a share of the conference's regular-season title.

Yet South Florida is nowhere to be found here at Bubble Watch. How can this be?

On the measures the NCAA men's basketball committee uses to select the field, the Bulls are not yet at the same level as bubble teams. Then again, the margin between South Florida and the bubble has been shrinking for weeks.

The strongest portions of USF's profile are its résumé metrics. NCAA-approved rankings such as strength of record and KPI both show the Bulls in the 60s or even in the 50s, depending on the day. These aren't stellar rankings, perhaps, but, for a team that suffered early-season losses at home to Maine and Central Michigan, they're impressive nonetheless.

Conversely, South Florida is less competitive with bubble rivals in measures of team strength. Earlier this month, Bubble Watch chronicled the daunting selection odds traditionally faced by teams below the mid-50s in the NET rankings. The Bulls are in the 80s in the NET and in the 90s at KenPom.

Still, Rutgers wrangled an at-large bid from the committee in 2022 despite a NET ranking of 77. If South Florida keeps winning, it can at least equal the Scarlet Knights on this criterion. Since the start of February, the Bulls have already raised their NET ranking by more than 30 spots.

By "keep winning," by the way, Bubble Watch recommends USF keep doing so all the way to the finals of the American tournament. On this subject, Abdur-Rahim might consider texting either Utah coach Craig Smith or VCU coach Ryan Odom for advice. Smith and Odom were the head coaches at Utah State in the 2021 and 2023 tournaments, respectively. In both years, the Aggies stormed into March on win streaks that carried them all the way to the Mountain West tournament final. In both years, USU lost in the conference tournament final to San Diego State. Nevertheless, the Aggies earned double-digit seeds in both brackets.

That's the kind of run that South Florida is on now.

That's the kind of run the Bulls will need to extend to earn an at-large bid.

Or, who knows, USF might just take the committee out of this question entirely and win the automatic bid. Either way, at 13 wins in a row and counting, South Florida is fast approaching bubble status.

[Bull Matrix]

Hopefully USF is featured on one of the blind resume challenges this Saturday on College GameDay 

[BullyPulpit]

12 minutes ago, Bull Matrix said:

Hopefully USF is featured on one of the blind resume challenges this Saturday on College GameDay 

You don't really want that. This is a resume that requires looking beyond the metrics. This is a team that needs to have the committee go off-script in order to get consideration. The early season losses have to be given less weight by the committee than they are given by the computers. 

[SilverBull]

In this age when all these funky metrics so outweigh head-to-head performance and the eye test, the bubble watch bites.

 Now we pretty much have to win every game.

[Bull Matrix]

2 hours ago, BullyPulpit said:

You don't really want that. This is a resume that requires looking beyond the metrics. This is a team that needs to have the committee go off-script in order to get consideration. The early season losses have to be given less weight by the committee than they are given by the computers. 

Hopefully they see it and expose the flaws in the NET. 

[BullyPulpit]

14 minutes ago, Bull Matrix said:

Hopefully they see it and expose the flaws in the NET. 

There is no perfect measure to rank the teams which is why they shouldn't rely upon just one. NET says we are the 84th best team in the nation. ELO Chess says that we are the 29th best team. Which one is right? I don't know! 

[79 Bull]

26 minutes ago, BullyPulpit said:

There is no perfect measure to rank the teams which is why they shouldn't rely upon just one. NET says we are the 84th best team in the nation. ELO Chess says that we are the 29th best team.

And media voters and actual coaches say we're 25th.  It's ridiculous.

GO BULLS!

[bcgruber]

watch alot of college basketball and determine for yourself which is the best metric.  hopefully this is what the committe does instead of just go off one computer model.  If our fate is in the hands of computer models.....we need the citibank compitetion for  rocky mascot AI nerds to get back on the case

[Gat-Rat Bull]

4 minutes ago, bcgruber said:

we need the citibank competition for  rocky mascot AI nerds to get back on the case

Love this classic reference. Go Rocky!!

[Sk00b]

3 hours ago, SilverBull said:

In this age when all these funky metrics so outweigh head-to-head performance and the eye test, the bubble watch bites.

 Now we pretty much have to win every game.

This is what I'm saying. I'm not trying to get ahead of ourselves here but FAU is a "lock" for the tournament somehow and we aren't? Look at their conference record, then look at ours. Cmon. And don't get me started on conference titles vs tournament AQ nonsense ( although this worked out for baseball and i didn't complain). What a crock of ****. Isn't the entore season a conference tournament...