WBB still a projected 4 seed by ESPN...

Posted on: February 12, 2018 at 14:51:49 CT

in the new bracketology today by Charlie Creme. His relevant seed lines are:

1 UConn, Miss State, Notre Dame, Louisville
2 Texas, Oregon, Baylor, UCLA
3 SC, FSU, Maryland, Tennessee
4 Stanford, Mizzou, Georgia, NC State
5 TAMU, DePaul, Ohio State, Green Bay
6 Duke, Oregon State, LSU, South Florida

I said before I thought there were still 6 national seeds up for grabs, but I think Maryland and Tennessee will almost certainly get seeded now, maybe not on the 3 seed line where they are now, but it's hard to imagine either of them dropping to the 5 seed line. If either does drop that far it would be UT because they are such a head case, but that's looking like a long shot right now. But it sure looks like all 12 teams on the first three seed lines will get a national seed.

So I think its more like just 4 spots are left, and we are 1 of 8 teams fighting for those last 4 spots. I'll go further and say that Stanford is probably a lock also at this point. They are hot, fully healthy, have a very favorable closing schedule, and check nearly all the boxes the selection committees look for, especially having a super strong non conference schedule. We compare very poorly to Stanford and they will almost certainly get seeded before we will.

So it's more like just 3 spots left, and the contenders are: Mizzou, Georgia, TAMU, Ohio State, NC State, DePaul, and Duke. I just don't see Green Bay getting a top 16 seed over so many qualified Power 5 conference teams, and Oregon State has an awful RPI. LSU and South Florida have played themselves into the conversation, particularly after the Bulls dismantled Ohio State yesterday. But right now they are on the outside looking in, unless they run the table (well, South Florida will surely lose to UConn, but need to not get slaughtered).

It's just going to be really close for Mizzou I'm afraid. We don't have hardly any margin for error the rest of the way. The head to head loss to Georgia really hurt since they are now in the mix. We can't afford to slip up at all in the 3 remaining SEC games against teams with RPIs in the 90s or above, @Arkansas, @ Auburn, and Vandy. And we have to at least split against Tennessee and TAMU. A win over UT gets us much more credibility, a win @TAMU gets us a critical head to head against another team fighting for the last 3 seeds. Maybe we should not have to choose, and just win both.

We are up to #13 in the poll out today, and are at #16 in RPI rank this morning, although there are a lot of teams bunched up close behind us, and playing 2 RPI dogs today and Thursday won't help us, could easily see us drop as low as 20-21 by Friday.