Tag: Bubble Watch

Men’s Basketball: How to watch, listen as the Sooners get set to host West Virginia

Find out how to watch, listen to Oklahoma men’s basketball as they get set to take on the West Virginia Mountaineers.

In the final week of the regular season, the Oklahoma Sooners men’s basketball team is in crunch time. They aren’t a surefire lock for the NCAA Tournament and their postseason aspirations depend on finishing the season strong.

Next, they host the West Virginia Mountaineers (14-15, 3-11 Big 12) after winning in Morgantown 72-62 the last week of January. Tanner Groves led the way shooting a blistering 9 of 11 from the field and finishing with 21 points. His brother Jacob Groves pitched in 12 and the Sooners walked out with a modest victory.

The Sooners (15-14, 5-11 Big 12) will look to build off their 66-62 overtime win against rival Oklahoma State and continue stacking wins as they look to fill out their tournament resume.

The Mountaineers slumber into the game on a six-game losing streak and are looking to play spoiler for bubble teams like the Sooners and whoever else might line up across them. If the Sooners don’t allow West Virginia to speed them up, they should come up with another win in this one in front of their home crowd on Senior Night.

How to Watch

Date: Tuesday, March 1

Time: 6 p.m. CST

TV: ESPN2

Line: Oklahoma -5.5*

Money Line: Oklahoma -260, West Virginia +205

Over/Under: 134.5*

*lines courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook.

Stream

How to Listen

Sooner Sports Radio Network

The radio broadcast of Toby Rowland and Kevin Henry can be heard on Sooner Sports radio Network (KRXO 107.7 FM The Franchise in Oklahoma City, KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa; Varsity Radio App)

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. Let us know your thoughts, comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.

Here’s where the Gators stand in the latest USA TODAY Sports bubble watch

The Gators remain on the outside, but Saturday’s win kept their NCAA Tournament hopes alive.

Even with a stunning win over then-No. 2 Auburn last Saturday, the Gators positioning in the NCAA Tournament remains precarious after a home loss to Arkansas.

Florida got back on track with a comfortable win on the road against Georgia this weekend, but the victory over one of the worst power conference teams in the country won’t help much. Now, the emphasis is on the season finale against Kentucky, which is squarely in “must-win” territory if this team wants to have any chance at dancing in March.

Per the latest bubble watch from USA TODAY Sports, UF is still on the outside looking in but kept its hopes alive with Saturday’s win.

The Gators (18-11, 8-8 SEC) avoided a résumé stain by getting past SEC bottom-feeder Georgia 84-72. Florida got 27 points from guard Phlandrous Fleming. Florida started the day as one of the “next four out” and made up little ground, but it kept its at-large hopes alive by claiming a must-win game.

Given Florida’s placement in the Next Four Out by most bracket predictions, beating the Wildcats in Gainesville next Saturday may not be enough. This team could need a very strong run in Tampa at the SEC Tournament to solidify its chances.

Missing the NCAA Tournament in Year 7 (which would be Florida’s first time outside the March Madness field since his first season) would not bode well for embattled coach Mike White, but that could be a reality if this team doesn’t win its final two games and pull off an upset or two in the conference tourney.

UF takes on Vanderbilt in Nashville on Tuesday night before returning to the O’Dome for a rematch against the Wildcats, who won by 21 in Lexington earlier this month.

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Florida just hanging on in ESPN bubble watch

Florida is still listed as a bubble team with “work to do,” but that will likely change if it can’t win at least one of its next two games.

The Gators did a lot of damage to their NCAA Tournament case on Tuesday night with a road loss to Texas A&M. The Aggies had lost their last eight games heading into that one, but Florida came up short in a game it really needed to win to feel good about its chances to make the NCAA Tournament.

UF is still considered to be a bubble team for the time being, but it’s running out of chances. With the next two games being tough home matchups against Auburn and Arkansas, it could be all but eliminated from tournament contention by the end of the week.

For now, the Gators are listed as having “work to do” on ESPN’s bubble watch. The only other conference team on the bubble is Arkansas, who “should be in,” per ESPN.

The situation in Florida can now be summed up rather simply: At 16-10 and 6-7 in the SEC, the Gators need at least one win in upcoming home games against Auburn and Arkansas. True, we might learn later that UF really needed two victories in that stretch. But going 0-2 against the Tigers and Razorbacks with just one marquee game remaining on the schedule (at home against Kentucky) no longer seems to be an option. Florida is having problems on offense at a very inopportune moment. In a one-point loss at Texas A&M, Gators not named Colin Castleton went 12-of-49 from the floor.

As is mentioned above, winning one of the following two games may not even be enough for a UF squad that has just one Quadrant 1 win on the season and several bad losses. Auburn is among the best teams in the country, and Arkansas is a lot better than this squad right now.

Gators coach Mike White hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament since his first season in Gainesville, but he’s on the brink of doing just that right now. Such a finish in Year 7 after three consecutive first-weekend tournament exits wouldn’t exactly bode well for White’s future in Gainesville.

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Blowout loss to Kentucky doing no favors for UF’s tournament resume

Florida still has “work to do,” per ESPN’s bubble watch, but it’s running out of time to build its resume.

A win in Rupp Arena against Kentucky on Saturday would have done wonders for Florida’s NCAA Tournament chances. As things currently stand, UF has just one Quadrant 1 win on the season, and that was all the way back in November.

But with a 78-57 loss to the Wildcats, Florida missed another opportunity for a key win to bolster its case to make the dance. For a team that’s currently considered to be on the wrong side of the bubble, UF is running out of chances.

On the latest bubble watch from ESPN, the Gators, who are considered to be the final team among the First Four Out by Joe Lunardi, still have work to do.

The 78-57 final score in Florida’s loss at Kentucky might not have fully captured just how completely the UF defense was dominated by the Wildcats. At 59 possessions, this was one of the slowest games the SEC has seen this season. Mike White‘s team was simply overpowered on its defensive glass, and UK committed just five turnovers. As a “first four out” type of bubble team, Florida will try to play its way onto the correct side of the cut line with a road date versus Texas A&M followed by home games against Auburn and Arkansas. Certainly, the games in Gainesville against the Tigers and Razorbacks offer the possibility for marquee wins. The flip side, naturally, is that an 0-3 mark against the Aggies, Bruce Pearl’s team and the Hogs would extend the Gators’ stay in the most perilous real estate on the bubble.

UF will certainly have its opportunities down the stretch. Its next two matchups against the Aggies and Tigers are considered Quadrant 1 (though beating Texas A&M would probably drop it far enough in the NET to be considered Quadrant 2 after the fact), and Arkansas is no slouch either, being the only SEC team to take down Auburn so far.

If Florida wants to salvage any hope of making the NCAA Tournament, it can’t afford to drop all three of those games.

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Gators have ‘work to do’ to make NCAA Tournament, per ESPN bubble watch

Florida isn’t getting off the bubble any time soon, it seems.

In the latest NCAA Tournament bracket prediction from ESPN, Joe Lunardi has Florida just outside the projected field as the First Team Out. In the most recent “bubble watch” update, ESPN’s John Gasaway elaborated on that.

He has the Gators listed under the “Work to Do” section alongside Mississippi State. He considers Auburn and Kentucky locks to make the tournament, while he thinks Tennessee, Alabama, LSU and Arkansas all are in the “Should Be In” category.

Here’s what he said about the Gators’ candidacy.

Seasoned Bubble Watch readers will tell you the top of “Work to do” is where the drama and uncertainty peak. Teams comfortably above this location will likely make the tournament, while hopefuls below this spot can face long odds. But at the top of “Work to do,” it really could go either way. Which is applicable to Florida in particular because the Gators could hold this spot for a bit. A 16-8 record highlighted by a neutral-floor win over Ohio State feels bubbly, and the NET ranking and other metrics for Florida support that assessment. Mike White‘s team still has to play two games against Kentucky and one each against Auburn and Arkansas. Throw in dates against Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and Georgia, and a .500-ish mark the rest of the way — and more time at the top of “Work to do” — looks like a real possibility.

As Gasaway says, Florida seems to be near the low threshold of tournament teams by most metrics, and there’s definitely reason to believe this team will at least finish with double-digit losses with games against the league’s two best teams remaining, including two matchups against the Wildcats.

That Ohio State win is doing a lot of the legwork for the Gators, and if Tyree Appleby‘s buzzer-beater shot hadn’t gone through the net, this team could be outside of this discussion entirely. The Buckeyes rank No. 18 in the NET, but UF’s next best win was against Mississippi State, who ranks No. 56 and is not currently projected to make the tournament.

As Gasaway says, given the remaining schedule it looks like the Gators are destined to sweat all the way until Selection Sunday, as has been a common theme throughout White’s tenure.

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Here’s what The Athletic said about Florida in a brutally honest Bubble Watch update

How would you describe Florida’s basketball season so far? “Aggressively average,” is what The Athletic came up with.

Florida basketball has spent most of the season on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament, and The Athletic took the opportunity to address the Gators mediocrity in Tuesday’s Bubble Watch update.

Once again, Florida is in the group of Southeastern Conference teams that have “work to do” before getting into the tournament field, according to The Athletic. The problem is, no one is exactly sure what’s going on with the Gators. Seemingly unable to win any of the big games, Florida has put together a respectable 15-8 record without any wins to write home about other than an early buzzer-beater victory over Ohio State.

Florida is, as The Athletic calls it, “aggressively average.” No punches were pulled for this blurb, and frankly, it sums up the feelings of many in Gator Nation:

Can we be really real with you guys? Can we try some radical honesty? Yes? Great. Here goes: We hate Florida’s Bubble Watch blurb. It’s the worst thing we do every week… we get midway through the SEC section, and then we see Florida, and a real sense of dread rushes in. It’s a struggle to find anything remotely interesting to say about this team or this program at the moment. It is fundamentally formless to us; we have no vision of what Florida basketball is, or is supposed to be. Florida is on the bubble. It is aggressively average.

It is (and we can’t make this up) the eighth-best offensive team in the SEC and the eighth-best defensive team in the SEC, which is totally fitting and perfect …. The idea of having to find new ways to write these same pieces of information at least once per week for the next month truly chills us to the bone.

While it might seem harsh, it’s an accurate assessment of Florida’s season. The Gators are 4-7 against Quadrants 1 and 2 opponents, 11-1 against Quadrants 3 and 4 teams, and 5-5 in conference play. That’s a textbook résumé of an average team in modern college basketball.

Colin Castleton‘s return could help get the team going, but tough tests against top-10 ranked Kentucky and Auburn in February will be difficult to navigate. The pattern of winning a few games and then losing would keep the Gators on the bubble for the rest of the season.

It’s better to be on the bubble than not in the conversation at all, but Florida’s average play won’t cut it in the long term.

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Where Michigan State stands on the morning of Selection Sunday

While it’s not guaranteed the Spartans are dancing, things do seem to be pointing in that direction.

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In most years, Michigan State is safely in the field and Selection Sunday is more about getting a good draw for a run in the NCAA Tournament. This year, fans are just crossing their fingers that they’ll just be part of March Madness.

While it’s not guaranteed the Spartans are dancing, things do seem to be pointing in that direction — according to numerous bracket projection experts.

Joe Lunardi of ESPN currently has Michigan State as one of the final teams to make the tournament and avoid playing in the “First Four” play-in games. The Spartans are currently listed as a No. 11 seed playing against USC in the opening round of Lunardi’s most up-to-date bracket.

Shelby Mast and Scott Gleeson of USA TODAY have the Spartans in a similar spot as Lunardi in their final projection that came out on Sunday morning. Michigan State is listed as a No. 11 seed playing Clemson in this projection from Mast and Gleeson.

CLICK HERE TO SEE USA TODAY BRACKET PROJECTION

Jerry Palm of CBS Sports is a little higher on the Spartans than ESPN and USA TODAY, with Michigan State sitting as a No. 10 seed in his most recent bracket projection that came out on Sunday morning. The Spartans are currently slated to play Oregon in Palm’s most recent projection.

One final indication that the Spartans will be dancing is from the Bracket Matrix — a tool that compiles bracket projections and provides an average seed and odds of making the NCAA Tournament. As of this morning, the Bracket Matrix had the Spartans sitting as the first 11 seed ahead of fellow bubble teams like UCLA, Wichita State, Louisville, Drake and Syracuse.

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So what does all of this mean? Well, Spartans fans should feel pretty good about hearing Michigan State’s name called today during CBS’ Selection Show at 6 p.m. ET. However, we need to keep in mind that these are all just projections and that the selection committee could have a completely different view of the Spartans. So nothing is guaranteed at this point but at least we can feel relatively good about their chances at making a 23rd straight NCAA Tournament.

Either way, we’ll know soon enough.

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Michigan State still safely in NCAA Tournament in latest ESPN Bracketology

MSU didn’t play on Friday but not much changed for the Spartans as far as their NCAA Tournament standing goes — if anything, it improved.

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Michigan State didn’t play on Friday but not much changed for the Spartans as far as their NCAA Tournament standing goes — if anything, it improved.

The Spartans benefited from a number of bubble teams losing in their conference tournaments on Friday, and because of that, they remain as a No. 11 seed and safely in the NCAA Tournament of ESPN’s latest Bracketology from Joe Lunardi. Lunardi has the Spartans two spots above the “Last Four In” currently, and facing No. 6 seed BYU in the opening round.

There are a number of bubble games on Saturday that could affect the Spartans’ but based on where Lunardi currently has Michigan State, it seems unlikely they’ll drop out of the field at this point. Things can of course change, but Michigan State should feel pretty comfortable at this point.

Selection Sunday is tomorrow with the annual selection show on CBS starting at 6 p.m. ET. We’ll then know the Spartans’ match-up in the NCAA Tournament — or if their lengthy March Madness streak ends.

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Bubble Watch: Five games on Saturday with bubble implications for MSU

Let’s take a look at a handful of important games that could either support or hurt Michigan State’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament.

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Michigan State didn’t play on Friday, but it still was a really good day for the Spartans and their NCAA Tournament odds.

A number of fellow bubble teams were on the court in conference tournaments on Friday, and a good chunk of those bubble teams lost, including Seton Hall, Ole Miss, SMU and Colorado State. All of these teams will now sweat it out on Selection Sunday and that’s good news for the Spartans, who are projected safely ahead of these squads.

Friday was a good bubble day for Michigan State, and I now feel more comfortable with the Spartans making the big dance this morning than I did yesterday. But there’s still a handful of games that could impact Michigan State’s standing on the bubble and seeding line on Saturday. Let’s take a look at those games and who you should be rooting for:

Bubble Watch: Five Games on Friday with Bubble Implications for MSU

Let’s take a look at a handful of important games that could either support or hurt Michigan State’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament.

Sadly, Michigan State will not be playing on Friday after a lackluster performance in their Big Ten Tournament opener on Thursday. The Spartans fell to Maryland, 68-57, in their lone Big Ten Tournament game and will now have to wait until Selection Sunday to know if they’re dancing or not.

Current reports from Andy Katz and Joe Lunardi suggest the Spartans are safely into the field, but a win on Thursday would have really secured their spot.

With the Spartans not playing any more games this weekend, let’s take a look at a handful of important games that could either support or hurt Michigan State’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament.