Virginia, Clemson, and Duke are locks for the NCAA tournament. Louisville is in decent shape, and UNC still has some strong OOC wins to help their resume. Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh for one reason or another have played their way off the bubble. I mean way off. Syracuse is poised to join them. NC State and Virginia Tech are smack on the bubble, with NC State making a good case to be in, and the Virginia Tech Hokies teetering on or off the bubble depending which day of the week it is.
Then we have Miami and Florida State. Two teams that would be in the field if it were today. They’ve been fringe top 25 teams all season, but each time your ready to name them a lock, they lose a game they probably shouldn’t be.
Both have similar profiles…
Florida State has 6 top 100 wins, Miami has 5. Florida State has a sub top 100 loss to Wake Forest and Miami has one to Georgia Tech. Both are top 50 RPI teams, and both are ranked in the 20s in the Ken Pom rankings.
They look like the epitome of a 7-10 seed team. Good enough to reach the sweet the 16 or lose in opening round by a dozen. With that kind of resume, all it would take is a couple of back to back to losses and their tournament inclusion would head precariously toward the bubble. Miami was playing at Virginia Tech and Florida State was at Louisville today.
This was wasn’t setting up well for either team. Louisville was coming off a well played loss against Virginia, and Virginia Tech had won three games in row. The Hokies were playing for NCAA positioning as well. The Burricanes would be without Bruce Brown too.
Miami and Florida State came up with a couple of their best performances of the season.
The Hurricanes shot a sizzling 58% in the first half opening a 12 point lead. They held off the Hokies for a 84-75 win.
Florida State was coming off a loss to Wake Forest, and following Louisville they were hosting the red-hot Virginia Cavaliers. They were staring at a 5-7 ACC record right in the face, but on the road at Louisville the Noles left with a 80-76 victory. FSU used their length for 43-34 rebounding advantage.
The committee loves road wins, and the Canes and Noles picked up a couple of real good ones today. There’s still about 6 weeks before selection Sunday, but when Miami and FSU names are called as I believe they will be, you can look to February 3 as the day that was one of the biggest steps for them to getting there.
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