NCAA Tournament March Madness

#170 WKU

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

WKU projects as a team that will likely need to earn an automatic bid because its résumé is a jumble of sturdy neutral and road victories and damaging, high-visibility defeats that a committee will weigh heavily. The Hilltoppers have shown they can win away from home with road wins at Liberty and Delaware and picked up a notable neutral-site victory over Wichita State, and they protected the home floor against New Mexico State, but those bright spots are offset by neutral losses to Vanderbilt and South Florida and troubling road setbacks at New Mexico State, Florida International and Missouri State along with surprising home and road defeats to Kennesaw and Sam Houston State. The pattern is inconsistency: capable of beating respectable opponents away from home but also prone to bad losses that erode résumé value, so the conference tournament becomes the obvious route to the field because a run there can neutralize the bad results and supply the kind of resume-defining wins the committee rewards.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/3Tennessee Tech315W82-70
11/10@E Kentucky297W87-79
11/16Tennessee St187W95-82
11/26(N)Vanderbilt12L83-78
11/27(N)South Florida47L97-91
11/28(N)Wichita St82W75-70
12/6Evansville308W80-79
12/10@Marshall208L77-61
12/19Tulsa63L82-81
12/29@Jacksonville St209L78-67
1/2Sam Houston St111W102-91
1/4Louisiana Tech203W66-61
1/8@New Mexico St184L80-64
1/10@UTEP276W68-56
1/14Missouri St206W87-72
1/17Kennesaw163L81-65
1/21Liberty125L76-69
1/24@Sam Houston St111L73-58
1/28@Kennesaw163L72-69
1/31@MTSU178W65-60
2/5Jacksonville St209L71-66
2/7Florida Intl194W80-70
2/14MTSU178W82-80
2/18@Delaware293W88-87
2/21@Liberty125W94-73
2/26New Mexico St184W93-70
2/28UTEP276W97-65
3/5@Missouri St206L87-74
3/7@Florida Intl194L92-67
3/12(N)Kennesaw163L96-87