Has Michigan in the First Four.
If Michigan gets to 9 or 10 conference wins I think it’ll be in a good spot.
Even at 9-9, that’s probably 1 or 2 road wins along with 4 more top-100 wins (only Rutgers is a non-top100 team). That would bring Michigan’s total to 10 top-100 wins. Last year’s team had 5.
Tricky part is that right now Michigan has beaten a lot of teams right outside the top-50 so have to see how those numbers shake out.
Looks like Lunardi has U-M in a similar spot
I read that as “Final Four” and got freaked out 
100% agree with all of that. I’ve been thinking the exact same.
If they get to 9-9, I think the bigger question is more are they in the play-in versus in the tournament.
Depends on who they beat. If 9-9 includes wins against Michigan State, Wisconsin, @Rutgers, Purdue, then I think they only need to win 1 road game between @Indiana, @ Minnesota, @ Northwestern and @ Nebraska. Michigan is actually in a spot where they need to go win some games versus last year where they were just trying to hold on and not lose bad games. This team plays better as the hunter vs. the defender/hunted. Feels a lot like 2009 and 2011, sub-par start with some big opportunities on the home stretch of games.
The irony in all this is you can make the case winning @Rutgers is the most important road game left on the schedule. Or at least in my opinion.
If they go 9-9 winning the rest at home and winning @Rutgers, I just see no way they get left out, road Ws be damned. I’d love to know if that hypothetical resume has EVER been left out of the tournament.
Feels like the more likely way it works out at 9-9 is drop one at home, win at Rutgers, steal one more like @ NEB or @ MIN, etc.
The optimistic way to look at the rest of the schedule is: great win opportunities at home, every road game left is a team we arguably have more talent than. Could easily finish 7-2.
The pessimistic way to look at the rest of the schedule is: we aren’t good enough to beat Wisconsin or Purdue no matter where the game is, we haven’t won a road game yet and there’s no reason we will. Could easily finish 2-7.
And I could honestly see both happening
One other side factor about this year’s bubble, the mid-majors are way down. A lot of one-bid leagues this year so not too many chances for bid stealing.
Also, as a side note, how about Furman holding steady at RPI of 124? That was unexpected.
Figured I’d put this here if this is the NCAA Tournament discussion thread.
Here’s Michigan’s current nitty gritty as of 1/31:
Overall Record: 14-8 (4-5)
RPI: 68
SOS: 47
Record Vs. 1-25: 0-4
Record Vs. 26-50: 1-2
Record Vs. 51-100: 5-1
Record Vs. 101-200: 3-1
Record Vs. 200+: 5-0
These notes are meaningless this far in advance, but of note, nobody is really in danger of following out of the top 100 quite yet. Marquette and Illinois are at 53 and 51 respectively. SMU is sitting at 26 currently.
0-4 against the top 25…woof. Really need those Wisco and Purdue wins
To be fair… SMU at 26. If they jump up a few spots and Illinois/Marquette jump a few spots all of the sudden those numbers look a lot different.
Michigan has one game left against non-top 100 competition, win 5 more games and the resume will be fine.
Lunardi moves Michigan up to a 10 seed since Monday’s action. I know bubble is “weak” every year, but this goes to show how bad it is so far with more one-bid leagues out there in 2017.
Palm on CBS moved them up to a non play-in 11 seed.
The one-bid landscape is basically no different than last year. There were 21 last year. There are 22 in Lunardi’s latest bracket, which of course can’t account for conference-tourney upsets. C-USA could produce a second bid, for instance, if MTSU firms itself up as an at-large and then falters in its tournament.
Also, multi-bid leagues can produce bid thieves, too. If UC and SMU fail to win the American, or Dayton and VCU fail to win the A-10, a bid would vanish. Same could go for the Valley depending on how solid Wichita and Illinois State become as at-large candidates.
The upshot of all this is the bubble is likely to shrink by a spot or two.
There’s definitely always the chance for bid thieves, but the number of bid thief leagues has shrunk this year. Two usual multiple bid leagues are one bids this year - Mountain West and Missouri Valley (most likely).
Also, don’t forget, if a league is that weak to only have one or two teams in at large contention, then any conference tourney loss is probably a bad one.
Long way to go and by tourney time you can definitely be right, but if a VCU or MTSU were to lose in their tournament, there’s a good chance that L can knock them out of an at large. Same with WSU/IllSt, they’re only getting one team in. WSU’s resume is pretty bad truthfully. But you’re 100% right on SMU/Cincy.
NIT 2017. Unbelievable.
Sadly true. Thought there was close to zero chance they would lose this game. OSU didn’t even play well, which makes it worse.
This didn’t put the nail in their coffin, there’s a lot of opportunity left. I just can’t see them winning those games or enough games any more after tonight. Not at all. Sure seems like no way they sweep MSU, Wisconsin and Purdue after this.
And we might not even get to take advantage of it…
They’ll be right back on the right side of it by winning any two of the next three. (They’re actually still in the field in CBS’s Palm bracket.)
I’m with everyone that it’s REALLY hard to think they will after Saturday’s game, but it’s still all in front of them. My tune has just changed from thinking they’ll make it, to expecting them not to anymore.