Marquette "Rising"

[bradforster]

Here's commentary on MU in today's version of bracketology from The Athletic:

Bracket Watch: Which teams' seed prices are soaring (hello, Marquette) and which ones are crashing (sorry, Iowa State)?

Rising
• Kentucky. We had been reluctant to seed the Wildcats much higher than the No. 4 seed line for most of the season because of their lack of marquee wins and a poor nonconference schedule. The team sheet still shows only two truly impressive victories, vs. Tennessee and Saturday's breakthrough win over Kansas. But Kentucky has been an efficiency monster when fully healthy, and it's hard to ignore the metrics (No. 3 KenPom, No. 5 T-Rank, No. 7 Sagarin) or that destruction in Allen Fieldhouse. The Wildcats move up to the No. 2 line this week. Is a No. 1 seed possible? Probably not, but no one outside of Auburn and Gonzaga is dominating that marketplace right now.

• Marquette. In our second edition of this season's Bracket Watch, way back on Jan. 7, the Golden Eagles appeared in the First Four. Those were simpler times. All Marquette has done since is win eight out of nine games, including a two-game sweep of Villanova. Shaka Smart's squad entered Thursday tied for the most Quad 1 victories (seven) in the country. The Golden Eagles' highest ranking among the predictive metrics is 26th (KenPom), but their wins have pushed them to the end of our No. 4 line, with the potential for a little more if there's a strong kick before the closing bell.

• TCU. An extremely generous nonconference slate (ranked 287th by KenPom) had us skeptical about the Horned Frogs all the way up to a couple of weeks ago. But TCU has beaten Iowa State and Oklahoma on the road and LSU at home in three of its past four games and is 6-4 in Quads 1 and 2. The brutal Big 12 can crush many a team's dreams, but for now, the Frogs are well on the right side of the bubble and climbing fast.