With just a week and a half remaining in the regular season, the SEC bubble picture is becoming clearer as Selection Sunday approaches.
Nationally, about 13 bids appear up for grabs. How many the SEC can grab from the available 13 will likely define whether it is a 10- or 11-bid league in 3 Sundays.
The 10,000-foot view of the race tells us that the SEC bubble looks quite similar to the bubble in the rest of the country.
The teams with higher-echelon wins and no résumé-crushing losses appear in the field today, even if they have work to do (Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia). The teams without enough high-quality Quad 1 (NET Ranking of 1-30 at home, 1-50 neutral, 1-75 road) wins and unsightly bad losses sit on the cut line (Georgia). The teams with a strange blend of high-quality wins but high-loss volume (Auburn) are in more trouble. That’s no different than the rest of America, which should both comfort SEC bubble teams and serve as a warning as March beckons.
Time is running out. The margins are razor thin. The time to win is now, or the NIT awaits.
Here’s a look, via Kalshi, at the markets for some of the current SEC bubble teams to make it to the Round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament:
Nationally, I’ve got 24 teams in “lock” status, with an additional 10 teams in the “Should Be In” category, including Missouri, who should have cemented a berth on Tuesday night by defeating a hot Tennessee team 73-69 at Mizzou Arena. But assuming I’m correct about 24 locks, let’s take a look at the big picture around the country. (I do not have Utah State in “lock” category after its loss this weekend at Nevada, if you are curious as to who the closest “Should Be In” team is from my lock group.)
That national landscape frames the debate in the SEC, because you essentially have 5 locks and then 6 teams fighting for 5 or 6 spots.
With that framing in mind, here’s the SDS SEC Bubble Watch.
National Locks (24)
ACC: Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisville
Big 12: Arizona, Kansas, Iowa State, Houston, BYU, Texas Tech
Big East: UConn, St. John’s, Villanova
Big Ten: Michigan, Illinois, Purdue, Nebraska, Michigan State
SEC: Florida, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Tennessee
Rest: Gonzaga
We still have plenty of spots to be claimed. With 25 teams assigned as “Locks” and 8 more as “Should Be In,” that still leaves a real bubble brawl. Assuming 7 or 8 of those 33 “safe” teams earn automatic bids, that means 11 or 12 at-large invitations are available for the 22 “In the Mix” teams (before any bid stealers).
National Should Be In (10)
Clemson, Miami, UCF, Iowa, Wisconsin, Utah State, Saint Louis, Miami (Ohio), Kentucky and Mizzou
SEC “Should Be In” Teams
Here’s a breakdown of the SEC bubble teams:
Kentucky: 18-10, 9-6 SEC
Kentucky stopped the bleeding on Tuesday night, grabbing a road win at South Carolina to end a 3-game losing streak.
Kentucky remains in the top 30 in the NET, and no Power 5 team in the NET Top 30 has ever missed the NCAA Tournament.
Kentucky is also 33rd in “Wins Above Bubble,” (WAB) a metric that judges how the Wildcats perform against other teams expected to be in the field. That’s a quality number that could protect them if things get sticky before Selection Sunday.
Still, Kentucky’s 3-game close (Vanderbilt, at Texas A&M, Florida) presents both opportunity and risk. All 3 games are losable. All are also winnable. The key for Kentucky is likely to win at least 1 of them, thus avoiding a 1-6 close to the regular season that would be a loud data point to the Selection Committee as they meet during Championship Week. Beat Florida or Vanderbilt in that final 3-game stretch, and Kentucky becomes a “Lock.”
Missouri: 19-9, 9-6
The Tigers advance to “Should Be In” status after Tuesday night’s immense win over red-hot Tennessee. The victory gave Missouri a fifth win in Quadrant 1, a collection of victories that includes its 74-72 win over Florida on January 3 and a win at Rupp Arena, both of which sit in Quad 1A. Mizzou is behind Kentucky in WAB, but well within the top 40 at this point. Missouri’s strength of schedule metrics (50th) are favorable to other SEC bubble teams as well, with the exception of Texas (29th), and the Tigers have 0 losses outside of Quad 1 and 2. Predictive metrics aren’t great — Missouri ranks just 51st at KenPom and 47th at Bart Torvik, the Selection Committee’s preferred analytical databases — but Dennis Gates has his team in the top 40 of Torvik over its last 10 and it’s worth noting the Tigers didn’t play a game fully healthy as a group until the Florida game on January 3. A 2-1 finish would put Missouri at 21-10 heading to Nashville, and likely render any outcome at Bridgestone Arena largely about seeding, not admission.
SEC Bubble Teams
Now we dive into the true SEC bubble teams:
Georgia: 19-8, 7-7
The Georgia Bulldogs had a fantastic week, winning at Rupp Arena over Kentucky and coming home and clapping Texas 91-80, avenging a lopsided January loss in Austin.
Mike White’s club is in good shape in the NET, at 33, and the Dawgs are 10-7 against Quad 1 and 2, an improvement over say, Missouri, who is merely 9-9 against the top 2 quadrants.
Georgia lacks upper-echelon wins, though, aside from a 90-76 home win over Arkansas that is aging like a vintage wine.
After losing 5 of 6 and risking falling out of the field, the Dawgs navigated a tough week with 2 résumé-boosting wins and their closing 4-game stretch of Vanderbilt, at South Carolina, Alabama, at Mississippi State is ranked the third-easiest in the SEC, per the Basketball Percentage Index.
Georgia hasn’t reached back-to-back NCAA Tournaments since the scandal-ridden Jim Harrick era in 2001 and 2002. With his usual high integrity approach, Mike White is about to do it in his third and fourth seasons on campus. Considering the dumpster fire he inherited from Tom Crean, that puts White and Georgia basketball on the precipice of an immense accomplishment.
Texas: 17-10, 8-6
The Texas Longhorns remain in bubble purgatory thanks to high loss volume, but their strength of schedule (29th overall) and high quality wins (at Alabama, Vanderbilt) have them closer to “Should Be In” status than say, Dayton and the First Four, which was the fate that ended Rodney Terry’s brief run in Austin.
Texas has only 1 “eyesore” loss, a 1-point defeat to a bad Arizona State team in Maui. That was in November. That number needs to stay at 1, but in truth, only a home loss to Oklahoma would be considered a “bad loss” down the stretch for Texas. With Florida visiting Wednesday night and road tilts at Texas A&M and Arkansas still on tap, there are opportunities for Texas to close the door on any lingering doubt before it arrives in Nashville.
To do it, the Longhorns will need to guard better: they have the SEC’s second-worst efficiency defense, ranking 118th nationally on that side of the basketball.
Texas A&M: 19-8, 9-5
The Texas A&M Aggies lost 4 consecutive games to start February, putting them at risk of missing the field thanks to a soft nonconference schedule that left them with little to hang their hats on from a résumé standpoint entering SEC play.
A spectacular comeback win over Ole Miss followed by a win over Oklahoma last weekend righted the ship, but for Year 1 of Bucky Ball to play in the Big Dance and not the NIT, another high-quality win down the stretch is essential. The Aggies have the worst strength of schedule among SEC bubble squads (70th) and are just 8-8 against the upper 2 quadrants. The close is tricky (at Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, at LSU). A 1-3 stretch probably means the NIT, barring a résumé win in Nashville. A 2-2 stretch may be sufficient to avoid that fate, especially given Texas A&M’s predictive metrics (37th KenPom, 32nd Torvik) are easily “NCAA Tournament” quality.
Auburn: 15-13, 6-9
What to do with the Auburn Tigers?
Steven Pearl’s team has played the toughest schedule in America, an unfortunate after-effect of Bruce Pearl waiting until the preseason to retire. Auburn’s played 16 games in Quadrant 1 and 20 in the first 2 quadrants, more than any team in America. The Tigers have 5 Quadrant 1 wins, including the best SEC résumé win of the season, a 76-67 upset of reigning national champion Florida in Gainesville. The predictive metrics are also fine, at least offensively, where the Tigers are 10th in America in offensive efficiency, per KenPom. Auburn also ranks 36th in the NET, ahead of Texas, Texas A&M, and Missouri.
Those positives hedge against some brutal realities. Loss volume historically matters, as do “trend” lines, and the Tigers have lost 6 of 7 since winning at Florida. For Auburn to get to the Big Dance, wins over Ole Miss and LSU at home are musts. That would leave them 17-13 before the Iron Bowl of Basketball rematch in Tuscaloosa. A win over the now Bediako-less Tide could be the difference. A loss likely leaves Auburn hoping the Selection Committee pays attention to conference tournaments — always a risky proposition.
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
