Marquette moved up three spots at
www.kenpom.com for the win at Providence (to 49th) and another 3 spots for staying within 10 of Nova (to 46th). That is Marquette's highest ranking of the year and the first time all year the kenpom rating is high enough for an NCAA bid.
As everyone knows, the kenpom ratings are getting more and more consideration relative to rpi, meaning good losses help.
Based on kenpom Marquette would be the last team in the tournament. 22 automatically qualifiers are ranked between 58th (Missouri State mvc) to Hampton (meac). If course under this scenario, any spoiler who won one of the other 10 conferences and was ranked lower than 46th would know mu out of the 68 bids (eg UCLA winning pac12 as 47th, Minnesota winning big ten at 48th, Virginia tech or Syracuse winning acc from 49th or 50th, Georgia winning sec as 51st etc).
So as of today mu is the ultimate bubble team and moving in the right direction based on kenpom. 15 spots out based on forecast rpi of 61st, which indicates mu would head into the big east tournament as 44th with an 19-11 mark, 53rd if 18-12. Obviously a a road win over a top 5 would have been a game changer, but a 10-point loss with a strong finish at the #3 slwas good for the eye test as well.