With just two regular-season games before next week's Pac-12 Tournament, here's a look at UW's NCAA tournament projections.
Mike Hopkins believes the Washington men’s basketball team is deserving of an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament, but bracket analysts say the Huskies still have some work to do with two weeks remaining before Selection Sunday.
Jerry Palm at CBS Sports and Michael Beller at SI.com both have UW listed as the third team on their ‘First Four Out’ lists.
Palm includes four Pac-12 teams (No. 5 Arizona, No. 8 Arizona State, No. 11 USC and No. 12UCLA) in his mock NCAA tournament. Utah is second among the four teams just missing the tourney.
Beller has three Pac-12 teams (No. 4 Arizona, No. 8 ASU and No. 11 UCLA) in his NCAA tournament forecasts. USC is first among teams who didn’t make the cut and Utah sixth.
Most Read Sports Stories
Meanwhile, ESPN bracket guru Joe Lunardi also has three Pac-12 teams (No. 4 Arizona, No. 10 ASU and No. 12 USC) in his latest projections. Washington (fifth), UCLA (second) and Utah (seventh) are included among the bubble teams that are not in the tournament.
Following a 68-51 win on Saturday at California, Washington received a slight bump in the RPI to No. 51.
Here’s a look at the other Pac-12 teams: Arizona (17), USC (27) ASU (42), UCLA (54), Utah (57), Oregon (72), Colorado (79), Stanford (83), OSU (163), Washington State (177) and California (211).
Here’s where UW ranks in the ratings that the Selection Committee is using: KPI (49), ESPN strength of record (69), Sagarin (94), KenPom (95) and ESPN basketball power index (112).
And here’s how the team sheet looks for Washington (19-10, 9-7 Pac-12).
Quadrant 1: 3-5 (Wins: Kansas, Arizona and USC; Losses: Gonzaga, Providence, UCLA, Utah and Oregon).
Quadrant 2: 2-3 (Wins: ASU and Colorado; Losses: Utah, Virginia Tech and Stanford).
Quadrant 3: 7-2 (Wins: Belmont, Colorado, Montana, UC Davis, Eastern Washington, WSU and Cal; Losses: Stanford and OSU).
Quadrant 4: 7-0 (Wins: Seattle U, WSU, Cal, Loyola-Marymount, Omaha, Bethune-Cookman and Kennesaw State).
In the past week, the Huskies lost a quadrant 1 win and picked up two quad 1 losses because Colorado fell and Gonzaga and Oregon rose in the RPI. UW also added three quad 3 wins.
Here’s a breakdown of how the new quadrant system works.
Quadrant 1: Home 1-30; Neutral 1-50; Away 1-75.
Quadrant 2: Home 31-75; Neutral 51-100; Away 76-135.
Quadrant 3: Home 76-160; Neutral 101-200; Away 136-240.
Quadrant 4: Home 161-plus; Neutral 201-plus; Away 241-plus.
Washington plays Oregon State (14-14, 6-10) on Thursday at Alaska Airlines Arena. The Huskies lost 97-94 in overtime to the Beavers at Gill Coliseum three weeks ago, but another defeat to OSU would give UW its first quadrant 4 loss and severely hamper its NCAA tournament hopes.
A win in Saturday’s regular-season finale against Oregon would improve Washington’s postseason resume with a quad 2 victory.
The Huskies have their most wins since the 2011-12 season, but if they’re going to snap a six-year NCAA tournament drought then they’ll need a few more victories.