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Welcome back to the Easy Bubble Solver! If you missed yesterday's piece and are unfamiliar with the methodology, you can catch yourself up on how the Solver works its magic here, but it's really simple: Average every team's RPI ranking and KenPom.com ranking, order the teams, take the top remaining teams. It works.
Selection Sunday. Time to put the EBS to the test.
Total bids: 68 -- 31 automatic, 37 at large
Automatic bids claimed: 27 -- Vermont (America East), Belmont (Atlantic Sun), St. Bonaventure (Atlantic 10), Missouri (Big 12), Louisville (Big East), Montana (Big Sky), UNC Asheville (Big South), Long Beach State (Big West), VCU (Colonial), Memphis (Conference USA), Detroit (Horizon), Harvard (Ivy), Loyola Maryland (Metro Atlantic), Ohio (Mid-American), Norfolk State (Mid-Eastern), Creighton (Missouri Valley), New Mexico (Mountain West), LIU Brooklyn (Northeast), Murray State (Ohio Valley), Colorado (Pac-12), Lehigh (Patriot), Davidson (Southern), Lamar (Southland), Mississippi Valley State (Southwestern), South Dakota State (Summit), Western Kentucky (Sun Belt), Saint Mary's (West Coast), New Mexico State (Western Athletic).
Bids remaining to presumed one-bid conferences: 0
Remaining bids ostensibly still up for grabs: 41
Here are the teams projected as "in." (Note: this handy table was created before St. Bonaventure punched their ticket to the Dance.)
One team you'll see that has ascended all the way to safely "in"? Xavier. The Musketeers now appear to be in, regardless of the fact that they just lost the Atlantic 10 final. However, St. Bonaventure is nowhere near the bubble line, which means the Bonnies stole a bid with that victory over the Musketeers.
As such, here's the bubble, starting with the current "last four in" (signified by green) regardless of the outcome of the A-10 tournament, the team that was really rooting for Xavier (orange), and eight teams on the wrong side of the bubble (red) no matter who won in the A-10.
Just like the humans, EBS sees Drexel as right on the line. In fact, now might be a good time to see how the EBS is stacking up with the humans right before the teams are actually picked. There actually are only two differences between EBS and the human-constructed brackets aggregated at the Bracket Matrix:
Teams projected "in" via EBS and "out" via humans: Miami, Iona
Teams projected "out" via EBS and "in" via humans: Seton Hall, South Florida
Should be fun to see how it all shakes out when the bracket is unveiled this afternoon.
Jeff Nusser is the Editor of CougCenter and a regular contributor to Basketball Prospectus. Follow him on Twitter at @NussCoug.
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