Aztecs Bubble Watch: Is there a path to an at-large bid?
Credit: Don De Mars/EVT Sports
Aztec Bubble Watch: Joe Lunardi Edition
Squarely on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament, the Aztecs simply cannot afford to lose another game. After they were able to get past UNLV on Friday night, they wrapped up their regular season by doing what they had to do. Win. Anything less, and it probably would have been the final nail in their coffin for an at-large bid.
Playing last Friday, all Dutcher and the team could do the rest of the weekend was watch the other games happening. Watch the metric numbers move up or down after every final whistle. Watch as teams from the ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Big Ten battle to maintain their tourney dreams. Watch for bid stealers as the single bid conference tournaments were playing out. Such is the life of a team on the bubble.
It turns out it was as good a weekend as the Aztecs could have hoped for. According to ESPN’s resident bracketologist Joe Lunardi, 13 of his 16 at-large teams played on Saturday. Of those 13 teams, 11 of them lost.
Starting with a conference foe, New Mexico lost at Utah State. Lunardi has the Lobos four spots ahead of the Aztecs as one of his First Four Out teams. New Mexico’s position on the bubble is extra painful because it’s looking like the deciding factor is their win over SDSU three games ago.
Indiana, still in the “First Four Out” category, lost at Ohio State. The Hoosiers have played four Tournament teams in their final six games of the regular season. They lost all of them. With an average margin of defeat of 18.75 points.
Surging Cincinnati hit a roadblock when they lost at TCU. Struggling Central Florida couldn’t get the job done at West Virginia. Once thought to be a lock for the tournament, the Knights have lost three in a row to finish their regular season.
Missouri came up short in overtime against Arkansas. Texas lost its rivalry game with Oklahoma in overtime. Auburn also lost its rivalry game with Alabama. The final margin was 12, but Alabama was up by as much as 28 for stretches of the game. Auburn continues to be one of Lunardi’s “Last Four In” teams, but according to Matt Norlander of the CBS Sports Eye on College Basketball Podcast, if Auburn doesn’t win the SEC conference tournament, it would be the first team with 16 losses to ever make the bracket.
North Carolina State’s nosedive to end the regular season continued as it lost to Stanford at home. The Wolfpack have lost four in a row and six of their last seven. Virginia Tech lost at Virginia and recently eliminated in the first round of the ACC Tournament. The Cal Bears lost at Wake Forest. SMU had also lost four in a row after their defeat at Florida State until they beat Syracuse in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Tuesday.
While it was a good weekend for the Aztecs, it wasn’t a perfect one. Oklahoma’s victory at Texas allowed them to leapfrog San Diego State, according to Lunardi. Having squeaked out a 1-point win at NC State, Stanford is the hottest team on the bubble closing the regular season on a 4-game winning streak. And on Monday night, Santa Clara beat Saint Mary’s in the West Coast Conference semifinals. That win almost assured them a spot in the bracket.
All those outcomes set the stage for this week. The high-major, multi-bid conference tournaments kick off on Tuesday. The Mountain West conference tournament starts Wednesday, but the Aztecs have a first-round bye, so they don’t play until Thursday, when they will meet the winner of Colorado State and Fresno State.
The easiest, most straightforward path to the NCAA Tournament for San Diego State is to win the Mountain West Conference Tournament. Gaining the MWC automatic bid takes all the variables out of the Aztecs’ bubble equation. Thats the ideal scenario but its not the only scenario which could get the Aztecs in the Big Dance.
The four dominant teams this season can also help SDSU. Duke, Arizona, Michigan, and Florida all won their conference regular-season championships by multiple games. And for that reason, all four are heavy favorites to win their conference tournaments as well. This is beneficial for SDSU as it would prevent any potential bid stealers from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC. 13 of Lunardi’s 16 bubble teams play in those four conferences.
In addition, of those 13 teams, there are multiple that rank as 9, 10, 11, and 12 seeds in their conference tournaments that are hoping to get an 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament. By definition, the likelihood of those teams maintaining their positions above SDSU are slim. Knowing this, SDSU should have already improved their odds of making the NCAA bracket by the time they tipoff on Thursday.
The current favorites to win the Mountain West conference tournament are Utah State at +220 on some sportsbooks. They have already solidified their place in the NCAA Tournament with their win over New Mexico on Saturday. How the Aggies decide to approach the MW tournament is another significant factor that could fall in favor of the Aztecs.
The Aztecs are second favorites to cut down the nets in Las Vegas. So it’s no long shot for them to go dancing at the end of the week. But the end of the season has been anything but clear-cut for the Mountain West. That’s not isolated to one conference, as shown by the teams Lunardi has in one day and out the next. The bubble hasn’t been pretty this season, but there have to be 68 teams that get in the Tournament. And there are still multiple pathways where the Aztecs can be one of those 68.
John is a graduate from the University of Arizona and recently moved to San Diego. He is passionate about most sports but focuses on all University of Arizona athletics, NFL, and college football and basketball the most. In his free time he enjoys running, biking to local coffee shops, and trying new craft breweries.