UCF’s 74-67 loss to West Virginia was the Knights’ third loss in a row after three straight wins, and their first loss at home to an unranked team this season.
Make no mistake: The Knights are on the NCAA Tournament bubble. But with six games left in the regular season and the Big 12 Tournament coming after that, all is not lost, even despite the bitter disappointment of blowing a 14-point lead in the second half to the Mountaineers.
So let’s evaluate UCF’s tournament chances as they stand right now.
NET: OK
First, the good news: UCF is 17-7 and 6-6 in the Big 12, which puts them at 49 in the NET, their lowest since December 6th. The Knights have been as high as 30 (after the Kansas win). Their average opponent’s NET is 38th.
The bad news: The West Virginia loss was their first loss outside Quad 1 (Quad 1 is 1-30 at home). And at 49, they are in a tough spot. The official First Four Out last year were ranked 41, 44, 51 and 54.
Bracketology: Still good
According to Bracket Matrix, UCF is averaging out as an 8-seed across the 112 different brackets it evaluates.
The most-followed one, Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology at ESPN, has UCF as a 10, and one of the last four byes (teams that do not have to play in a play-in game).
Lunardi has seven teams making the field from the Big 12, and UCF is the last one.
The Road Ahead
Here’s where things get dicey.
UCF’s next game is against TCU on Tuesday at home, who is in Lunardi’s First Four Out. If UCF loses that game, things will get really tough. Oklahoma State is in the Next Four Out, and UCF lost to them in Stillwater earlier this season.
Let’s look at UCF’s remaining opponents:
Bart Torvik has a fun Teamcast feature on his site that predicts how teams will do based on if things play out according to everyone’s analytics. Here’s the story:
UCF needs to go 4-2 (with the only losses coming at BYU and West Virginia) to head into the Big 12 Tournament as one of the likely last four teams in. Then it will likely come down to whether UCF can hold serve in the Big 12 Tournament — i.e., not get bounced early by a worse team.
If UCF can beat West Virginia to close out the season, they could get one of the last four byes.
If UCF can somehow knock off A.J. Dybantsa and BYU in Provo, they could contend for a 9-seed and not have to worry about the bubble at all.
Close out 6-0 and the Knights have way more breathing room.
Of course, all this is dependent on a number of things:
- How UCF performs in the Big 12 Tournament
- How other teams also on the bubble perform
So what’s the prognosis?
If UCF holds serve, going 4-2 in the final six with losses at WVU and BYU, that puts the Knights at 20-10 and 9-9 in the conference.
Right now UCF is 8th in the conference, with the last first-round bye in the Big 12 Tournament.
Using the standings from right now (February 15), UCF would play the winner of 9-seed TCU and 16-seed Utah. Win that and you get a swing at the 1-seed, which would be Houston at the moment.
If they win at least one game in the Big 12 Tournament with no losses to any teams lower than them in the NET, even if they get knocked out by Houston, that should be enough to get in, all things being equal.
If UCF wins two games in the Big 12 Tournament, the second one would be against one of the best teams in the nation, and that would definitely put them over the top.
Bottom line: There are still a lot of moving parts in motion right now. But 20 wins and .500 in the Big 12, plus at least one win in the Big 12 Tournament, should get UCF back to the Dance.
The road continues Tuesday vs. TCU.
