NCAA Tournament March Madness

#70 Northwestern

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Projection: likely out

Northwestern’s projection makes sense because its résumé is built on a few bright moments—most notably a road win at USC and a neutral-site victory over South Carolina—that demonstrate it can win outside the friendly confines, but those flashes are overwhelmed by damaging results such as neutral losses to Virginia and Butler and heavy defeats at Illinois and at Nebraska that hollow out the top of the resume. The Wildcats have shown they can hang with good teams at times, yet the profile also contains too many ugly showings and too few signature wins away from weak nonconference opponents, which leaves the committee uneasy. The remaining schedule offers meaningful chances to improve against Maryland and Oregon and to make a statement at Indiana or in the matchup with Purdue, but until Northwestern turns those opportunities into quality road or neutral victories the combination of soft wins and bad losses is why they sit on the outside looking in.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/3Mercyhurst291W70-47
11/7Boston Univ280W76-52
11/10Cleveland St304W110-63
11/14@DePaul112W81-79
11/21(N)Virginia20L83-78
11/23(N)South Carolina98W79-77
11/27(N)Oklahoma St62L86-81
12/3@Wisconsin29L85-73
12/6Ohio St40L86-82
12/13Jackson St336W93-53
12/16Valparaiso154W86-70
12/20(N)Butler81L61-58
12/30Howard228W80-60
1/3Minnesota80L84-78
1/8@Michigan St13L76-66
1/11@Rutgers161L77-75
1/14Illinois6L79-68
1/17Nebraska11L77-58
1/21@USC50W74-68
1/24@UCLA41L71-64
1/29Penn St124W94-73
1/31Washington47L76-62
2/4@Illinois6L84-44
2/8@Iowa24L76-70
2/11Michigan1L87-75
2/14@Nebraska11L68-49
2/18Maryland12778%
2/24@Indiana3521%
2/28Oregon10071%
3/4Purdue817%
3/7@Minnesota8043%