re: I think we need USC and Vandy to lose tomorrow

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So you think the Committee doesn’t care about region or having a diverse enough spread of teams after the conf tournaments? They will and have picked conference champions and others from mid-majors. For example, Southern Miss doesn’t need to win their conference, has a higher KPI but will get picked over LSU. If Southern Miss wins their conference tournament, USL is getting in with a higher KPI than LSU. If Troy wins the Sunbelt Conf Tournament, USL, Southern Miss AND Troy are getting in. USL and Southern Miss have higher KPIs than LSU. USL won the Sun Belt and most regard Southern Miss a lock due to their KPI and conference standing. There is an example of 2 teams that could be at large over LSU. I’m not going through every single bid stealer example.

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Yes, they do care about spreading things around to a certain extent, which is why I included Nebraska, Illinois, USM, ULL, Oregon, Texas, and WVU as locks for the tournament. One of the Big 10 teams and one of Sun Belt teams would be favored to get the auto bid, so that’s 5 at-large teams behind LSU before contemplating bid thieves. That still leaves 14 at-large bids for the 5 SEC 13-17 teams and 9 other teams behind LSU. Between stolen bids and other teams, you have to come up with at least 10 other teams behind LSU before LSU gets knocked off the bubble, more than that if SC, Vandy, and/or Florida end up behind LSU. That’s a lot of spreading around and chaos. There’s not zero chance of that happening, which is why I don’t consider LSU a “lock” at this point, but it’s highly unlikely they get bumped.

There are 17 conferences that are getting one-bid period with no chance of a stolen bid. That leaves 13. No bid thieves are coming out of the SEC or ACC. That’s 11. I think right now the committee has a certain number of teams in mind for the Big 12 and PAC-12, so if an unexpected team wins those tourneys they’ll just take a spot from another team in the conference. That leaves 9 conferences with legitimate bid thief possibilities. The Sun Belt and CAA have several bubble teams so there’s not much chance of a thief not coming from that group. I am going to set aside 2 spots for those conferences instead of 1. That drops the available spots to 12, but also reduces the thief opportunities to 7. More than likely you’re looking at no more than 3 or 4 bid thieves.

So, we’re still left with 14 spots to fill knowing a few of them might be stolen. I think at least 1-2 SEC schools are more at jeopardy than LSU, but let’s assume the other 4 SEC schools take spots first. That leaves 10. Like I said I think one goes to a PAC-12 school and one goes to a Big 12. Charleston at 39-12 and 21-5 and UNCW at 36-19 and 20-7 out of the CAA are the only bubble contenders with better overall records. I can see one of those 2 getting a bid before LSU, but they don’t need both to spread the wealth. In any case, that’s 3-4 teams. Everyone else has a worse overall record and a worse RPI. You’ve still got to come up with 6-7 more teams to knock LSU out. Even maximum chaos only puts LSU on the edge. Who else are you putting in?