Bracket Predictions Update: Saint Louis Slides, California Fades Fast

March 6, 2014 - by Jordan Sperber

Here’s a look at how last night’s games impacted our 2014 bracket predictions:

Saint Louis drops third straight; NCAA tournament run gets less likely

After losing just two of their first 27 games, Saint Louis has now lost three in a row. Even more surprising, two of those games have been at home. Saint Louis is now ranked just 40th in our New Predictive Ratings, which power our bracketology simulations. This recent stretch of losses not only hurts Saint Louis’ seeding, but also raises significant questions for how SLU will perform in the NCAA tournament.

Just last week, Saint Louis had a 29.5% chance of making the Sweet 16 according to our algorithms. Now the combination of seeding and poor play have decreased Saint Louis’ chances of a Sweet 16 run to just 20.3%.

The Billikens still have chances to improve their seeding, though, via a regular season finale at UMass and the Atlantic-10 tournament. Our updated seeding projections currently have a 5-seed as the most likely outcome for SLU, with about a 20% of getting a 4-seed or better.

Take a look at Saint Louis’ NCAA tournament advancements odds from last week compared to today’s odds (click to enlarge):

California exits NCAA bracket bubble discussion with Utah loss

With yesterday’s loss, Cal has now dropped four out of their last five games to fall to 9-8 in the Pac-12. According to our bracketology projections, the Golden Bears now have just a 13.8% chance of making the NCAA tournament. They are very much on the outside looking in.

Over the course of the losing streak, defense has been a problem for Mike Montgomery’s squad. Yesterday, the Cal defense actually held Utah to shooting an eFG% of just 39.5%, but Cal simply hasn’t been able to put together an all around game against quality competition of late.

Our bracket projections indicate that Cal will likely be a big long shot to hear their name on Selection Sunday unless they can find a way to advance to the championship game of the 2014 Pac-12 tournament. In fact, a home loss to Colorado on Saturday might even end Cal’s chances of an at-large bid completely.

California’s 5-0 Pac-12 start wasn’t exactly against the cream of the crop in the Pac-12. Maybe we should have expected some bumps in the road as the schedule picked up, but it’s still surprising to see Cal on the verge of leaving the bubble entirely on March 6th.