For the fourth straight season, Northwestern sits on the NCAA Tournament bubble as February comes to a close. In each of the past three years, the Wildcats fell just short of the NCAA Tournament, but with a relatively weak bubble this season, this could be the Cats’ year to make their first-ever Big Dance.
NU sits at 17-11 overall and 7-8 in the conference, with a home game Wednesday against Ohio State and a game Saturday at Iowa remaining. The Cats certainly could have helped themselves with a win against Michigan last Tuesday, but an overtime loss in that game meant a missed opportunity to pick up a signature win and move closer to a .500 conference record.
NU does not have any bad losses, but outside of a win against then-No. 6 Michigan State, the Cats don’t have any signature wins. Wins against Seton Hall, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa are okay, but not extremely impressive. It was the close losses this year – Michigan twice, Indiana, Purdue twice, Illinois and Creighton – that have put NU’s postseason fate in limbo.
It’s unclear what the Cats need to do this week to make the postseason – some say a sweep of Ohio State and Iowa is necessary, while others say a split plus a Big Ten Tournament win will be enough. In the current murky picture, check out where college basketball’s top prognosticators see the Cats landing and see what the numbers think of NU.
CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm (@jppalm), who has been favorable toward NU all season, has NU as an 11-seed playing 6-seed Florida State in Louisville.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) has the Cats in the “First Four,” a set of play-in games in Dayton. In Lunardi’s bracket, NU would play Texas, with the winner advancing as a 13-seed to play 4-seed Florida in Albuquerque.
Sports Illustrated’s Andy Glockner (@andyglockner) also projects NU will play Texas in a play-in game, but with the winner advancing as a 12-seed to play 5-seed Vanderbilt in Nashville.
Chris Dobbertean of the sports blog network SBNation (@sbnation) has NU as an 11-seed playing 6-seed San Diego State in Columbus.
The NCAA’s RPI rankings have NU listed at No. 43, which is a good ranking, but the Cats are just 2-9 against teams in the top 50, with wins coming against No. 4 Michigan State and No. 44 Seton Hall.
Ken Pomeroy, who puts together the KenPom ranking, ranks NU No. 56 in the country.
The Sagarin Ratings, put together by Jeff Sagarin and USA Today, rank NU No. 53 but rate the Cats’ schedule as the sixth-toughest schedule in the country. Sagarin’s ratings take into account margin of victory, but when that is taken out of the formula, NU ranks No. 35.
ESPN’s new rating system, the BPI, ranks the Cats as No. 50 and lists their schedule as the seventh toughest in the country.
ESPN’s “Bubble Watch” says NU still has “work left to do” in order to make the tournament. ESPN.com’s Eamonn Brennan says the Cats don’t necessarily need to beat Ohio State, even though it would greatly boost NU’s chances, but the game in Iowa City will provide a big test.
