West Virginia’s Costly NCAA Tournament Bubble Losses Mounting
The West Virginia Mountaineers keep losing games and keep losing momentum when it comes to the NCAA Tournament, according to CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm.
The Mountaineers (14-11, 3-9 in Big 12) are fighting to try and stay in the hunt for the NCAA Tournament and are coming off a 78-73 loss to Kansas State on Monday.
But, as Palm wrote on Tuesday, that loss to the Wildcats didn’t help at all. In fact, it further adds to a dossier that doesn’t look ‘March Madness’ ready.
West Virginia is in danger of falling off the bubble after losing at Kansas State on Monday. The Mountaineers are now 2-10 vs Quad 1 and just 8-11 vs Quads 1-3. No team with that bad of a record above Quad 4 has ever been selected to the tournament. Things do not get easier for West Virginia. The Mountaineers host Kansas next, then have three of their next four on the road, where they are just 1-7.
Going into Tuesday, Palm had the Mountaineers as one of the ‘First Four’ teams, playing a 12-seed game against SMU. ESPN Bracketology doesn’t have the Mountaineers on the bubble.
After hosting Kansas on Saturday, the Mountaineers go to TCU on Monday and Iowa State on Wednesday before hosting Texas on Feb. 26. In March, the Mountaineers go to Oklahoma on March 1 and end the season at home against TCU on March 5.
The Mountaineers aren’t the only team that should be worried, Palm wrote. Oklahoma is also on the bubble. The Sooners entered Tuesday’s game with Texas at 14-11 overall, and ended up losing in overtime. Palm wrote that just one team since 1994 had received an at-large bid that was not at least four games above .500 (non-pandemic seasons). That was Georgia in 2001. The Bulldogs were a No. 8 seed that lost in the first round.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
