You hear it over and over again this time of year: The only thing bubble teams do consistently is lose. They drop nail-biters at home. They get blown out on the road. While some teams are oh-so-close, others are straight-up disappointments. And come Selection Sunday, their double-digit losses put them squarely on the bubble.
But just because these teams have losing in common doesn't mean their losses are equal. While coaches rarely admit to the existence of a "good loss," some defeats are better -- or, in the context of the tournament selection process, look better -- than others. That's why we've decided to break down the bubble by losses. Because being in the RPI top 50 is one of our characteristics for a tournament team, we've marked losses to RPI top-50 opponents as acceptable. Defeats at the hands of teams ranked 150 or higher, on the other hand, are unacceptable. (Teams are ranked in the order of Joe Lunardi's S-Curve from Feb. 16.)
Bad losses
Some bubbles have worse losses on their resumes than others.
Team Record RPI SOS v. top 50 v. 150+ Worst L
Marquette Golden Eagles 15-11 66 29 3-10 9-0 Gonzaga (68)
Alabama Crimson Tide 17-8 83 127 2-2 10-1 Iowa (156)
Cincinnati Bearcats 20-6 47 95 3-6 11-0 West Virginia (23)
Baylor Bears 16-8 64 64 1-3 10-0 Iowa St. (142)
Boston College Eagles 16-9 42 21 1-4 5-0 Yale (143)
Richmond Spiders 20-7 69 144 1-3 14-1 Georgia Tech (167)
Michigan State Spartans 13-11 48 5 3-8 5-1 Iowa (156)
Memphis Tigers 20-6 26 38 4-3 8-1 SMU (191)
Wichita State Shockers 21-5 49 113 0-3 13-1 So. Illinois (206)
UAB Blazers 18-7 35 60 0-5 10-1 Arizona St. (158)
Butler Bulldogs 18-9 45 54 2-3 8-1 Youngstown St. (278)
Colorado State Rams 17-7 39 48 2-3 9-1 Sam Houston (187)
Washington State Cougars 17-9 72 88 1-5 9-0 Stanford (125)
Clemson Tigers 17-9 79 90 1-3 9-0 Virginia (149)
Oklahoma State Cowboys 16-9 52 46 3-3 7-1 Texas Tech (152)
Gonzaga Bulldogs 17-9 68 71 1-6 10-1 Santa Clara (163)
New Mexico Lobos 16-9 63 87 2-4 9-1 Wyoming (273)
Penn State Nittany Lions 14-11 59 7 4-5 5-1 Maine (200)
Duquesne Dukes 16-7 75 122 1-4 12-0 Robert Morris (127)
Cleveland State Vikings 21-5 34 118 0-3 11-0 Detroit (148)
Virginia Commonwealth Rams 20-8 65 128 2-4 14-3 Georgia St. (214)
As you can see, the above chart shows quite a variety of ways that teams end up on the bubble. The Cincinnati Bearcats -- who are in much better shape after topping the Louisville Cardinals on Wednesday night -- haven't lost to a team worse than the 23rd-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers. The Butler Bulldogs, on the other hand, have the worst 150+ loss on this list, dropping a Feb. 3 game to the Youngstown State Penguins, who are ranked No. 278. (That's still not as bad as the Saint Mary's Gaels' clunker Wednesday night against the No. 310 San Diego Toreros -- the worst loss by a top-50 team this season.) Most teams listed (13, to be exact) have one unacceptable loss staining their otherwise acceptable records. And save for the Alabama Crimson Tide, all of the teams have at least three losses to top-50 competition.
The two teams on the extremes stand out. The Marquette Golden Eagles, currently No. 41 on Lunardi's S-curve, have played a whopping 13 games against the top 50, winning just three times. That's right: 10 of the Golden Eagles' 11 losses have been, well, acceptable. But when you drill down a little deeper, Marquette's record looks even more impressive. All 13 of its top-50 games were, in fact, against top-30 competition. While Buzz Williams' squad is in 11th place in the Big East at 6-7, the seven losses have come against the following teams: Georgetown Hoyas (RPI No. 5), Pittsburgh Panthers (7), Notre Dame Fighting Irish (10), Connecticut Huskies (11), St. John's Red Storm (16), Villanova Wildcats (22) and Louisville (27). And like Cincinnati, Marquette's worst loss (a 66-63 defeat to the 68th-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs on Nov. 23) is hardly a bid-killer.
The road does get a little easier for the Golden Eagles. While they have to travel to Hartford to play UConn next week, the rest of their games are against Cincinnati, the Providence Friars and Seton Hall Pirates (twice). With an advantage in adjusted scoring margin in three of its remaining five games, Marquette projects to finish 18-13 (9-9 Big East) -- right at our tournament cut-off line of 13 defeats.
On the other side of our bubble chart, the Virginia Commonwealth Rams look like a team that will need to make a run in the Colonial Athletic Association tourney. The Rams' 20-point bludgeoning at the hands of the George Mason Patriots didn't help matters, but far more troublesome are VCU's struggles against poor opponents. Not only have the Rams played a whopping 16 games against teams ranked outside the top 150, they've lost three of them, all on the road: a one-point overtime defeat at the South Florida Bulls (153), an 11-point loss at the Northeastern Huskies (190) and an especially ugly 10-point loss at the Georgia State Panthers (214).
The losses make you wonder, what happened to the team that beat the UCLA Bruins in Madison Square Garden in late November? Time is running out for VCU, which has a BracketBusters matchup with the Wichita State Shockers (49) this weekend. Forget good losses: Now's the time for the Rams -- and other fringe bubble teams -- to win some games.
