Reminder: Badgers lost at GB after beating eventual NCAA champ Duke; but MU needs win over bubble LSU team to keep forecast as a 10th seed (all seeds, spoilers and bubble teams calculated)

The panic over the loss to Green Bay is a bit out of hand.  Wisconsin lost their last trip to Green Bay three years ago (www.kenpom.com had GB 139th then and 150th now).  The week before they beat eventual national champion Duke.  After that loss, they beat Ohio State by 20 and went onto finish one game out of first place with a 13-5 Big Ten mark.

It's not like the world is going to end tomorrow - I don't think.

However, this does put Marquette squarely on the NCAA bubble along with Saturday's foe LSU, who upset MU last year.  While RPI Forecast does currently forecast Marquette finishing with a 19-11 mark which would put us about 38th in RPI and give us a 10-seed to play Creighton if Selection went exactly by RPI (see below for all seeds, spoilers and bubble teams).  However, while the calcuations below show three spoilers leaving the top 48 RPI teams in the tourney, MU does have a glaring resume weakness that cannot be fixed.  MU will still be 2-3 away from home in non-conference games come Selection Sunday, and the 1-1 mark against teams projected to not finish in the Top 250 of the RPI is a major problem.

Non-conference games not in Bradley Center	RPI Forecast	Result
Butler	20	71-72 loss
Mississippi State	243	89-62 win
USC	134	72-64 win
Florida	5	49-82 loss
Wisconsin-Green Bay	225	47-49 loss

For this reason MU is under the gun to get a 2nd solid non-conference home win Saturday against an LSU team that stunned then 8th ranked MU last season.  While LSU is within a few spots of where www.valueaddbasketball.com picked them at the beginning of the year (putting them on pace to be 62nd in RPI according to RPI Forecast) when comparing the top 4 players on each team LSU has a huge advantage.  As you can see from this table, Hickey is ranked as the 98th best player in the country compared to MU's Davante Gardner being 255th, etc. through the first four, giving LSU a decided edge.

Clearly Marquette is much, much deeper, and dominates the rest of the roster starting with Chris Otule as MU's 5th best player, but can MU force LSU to the bench by increasing the tempo to draw fouls and force minutes from the bench?

Rnk	LSU Player	Ht	Class	VA	Rnk	MU Player	Ht	Class	VA	Edge
98	Hickey, Anthony	5'11"	2 So	6.44	255	Gardner, Davante	6'8"	3 Jr	4.47	LSU
368	Coleman, Shavon	6'5"	3 Jr	3.81	366	Wilson, Jamil	6'7"	3 Jr	3.83	Tie
434	Carmouche, Charles	6'4"	4 Sr	3.5	745	Cadougan, Junior	6'1"	4 Sr	2.42	LSU
475	Morgan, Malik	6'4"	1 Fr	3.33	792	Blue, Vander	6'4"	3 Jr	2.32	LSU
1066	Stringer, Andre	5'9"	3 Jr	1.68	854	Otule, Chris	6'11"	4 Sr	2.15	MU
1517	O'Bryant, Johnny	6'9"	2 So	0.97	971	Anderson, Juan	6'6"	2 So	1.89	MU
1930	Del Piero, Andrew	7'3"	4 Sr	0.46	990	Thomas, Jake	6'3"	3 Jr	1.85	MU
2635	Collins, Corban	6'3"	1 Fr	0	1101	Wilson, Derrick	6'1"	2 So	1.61	MU
3067	Hammink, Shane	6'7"	1 Fr	0	1485	Lockett, Trent	6'5"	4 Sr	1.02	MU
3194	Courtney, Jalen	6'8"	3 Jr	0	1501	Taylor, Steve	6'7"	1 Fr	1	MU
3292	Ludwig, Eddie	6'9"	4 Sr	0	1770	Ferguson, Jamal	6'4"	1 Fr	0.64	MU

In looking at RPI Forecast starting with the projected 10-seeds, MU has a little buffer before getting to the last four teams picked (Georgetown, Maryland, Lehigh and Wisconsin), even after accounting for a projected three spoilers (see percentages below for chance of spoilers by conference).

RPI Forecast	Seed	Spoiler%	Team	W-L	Conf
37	10		Baylor	18-12	B12
38	10		Marquette	19-11	BE
39	10		Colorado St.	18-10	MWC
40	10		California	19-11	P12
41	11		Memphis	22-9	CUSA
42	11		Notre Dame	21-10	BE
43	11		Southern Mississippi	20-9	CUSA
44	11		Temple	21-10	A10
45	12	playin	Georgetown	19-10	BE
46	12	playin	Maryland	22-9	ACC
47	12	playin	Lehigh	21-6	Pat
48	12	playin	Wisconsin	20-11	B10
58	12		Illinois Chicago	21-7	Horz
60	12		North Dakota St.	22-5	Sum
63	13		Spoiler 1
64	13		Canisius	21-8	MAAC
68	13		Spoiler 2
70	13		Akron	20-8	MAC
77	14		Stephen F. Austin	20-4	Slnd
79	14		Louisiana Tech	22-8	WAC
82	14		Spoiler 3
93	14		Florida Gulf Coast	21-7	ASun
96	15		Stony Brook	20-8	AE
102	15		George Mason	20-10	CAA
103	15		Robert Morris	21-10	NEC
107	15		Davidson	18-10	SC
119	16		Weber St.	19-7	BSky
145	16		Harvard	17-10	Ivy
147	16	playin	Pacific	15-13	BW
159	16	playin	Savannah St.	15-13	MEAC
160	16	playin	Gardner Webb	17-10	BSth
186	16	playin	Southern	17-10	SWAC
49	1st out	0.07	Oklahoma	18-12	B12
50	2nd out	0.1	Stanford	19-12	P12
51	3rd out	0.2	Illinois St.	21-9	MVC
52	4th out	0.07	St. Louis	19-11	A10
53	5th out	0.05	Utah	14-14	P12
54	6th out	0.1	Iowa	20-11	B10
56	7th out	0.05	Virginia	21-10	ACC
57	8th out	0.06	Richmond	20-11	A10
59	9th out	0.1	San Diego St.	17-8	MWC
61	10th out	0.07	Alabama	19-11	SEC
62	11th out	0.06	Louisiana St.	19-10	SEC
63	12th out	0.13	St. Mary's	21-8	WCC
65	13th out	0.3	Murray St.	21-5	OVC
66	14th out	0.05	Charlotte	20-10	A10
67	15th out	0.04	Xavier	18-12	A10
68	16th out	0.2	UCLA	19-12	P12
69	17th out	0.2	Eastern Kentucky	21-7	OVC
71	18th out	0.05	Texas A&M	19-12	SEC
72	19th out		Ohio	23-7	MAC
73	20th out	0.03	Saint Joseph's	19-10	A10
74	21st out		Dayton	19-11	A10
75	22nd out	0.1	Santa Clara	18-10	WCC
76	23rd out	0.04	Virginia Tech	17-13	ACC
78	24th out	0.04	Arkansas	18-13	SEC
80	25th out	0.04	Providence	17-13	BE

The total chance of spoilers (a team who pulls an upset win in their conference tournament to make the tournament while the projected automatic bid team also makes it) are listed below.  Because the percentages add up to about 300%, the odds are that translates into 3 total spoilers.

Chance	Most likely spoilers from conference
50%	Ohio Valley (Murray St. Eastern KY)
35%	Pac-12 (Stanford, Utah, UCLA)
30%	Atlantic 10 (St. L, Richmond, Charlotte, Xavier, St. Joe's, Dayton)
30%	Sun Belt (Western Kentucky)
30%	West Coast (St. Mary's, Santa Clara, BYU)
25%	SEC (Alabama, LSU, T A&M, Arka, Tenn)
20%	Missouri Valley (Illinois St.)
15%	ACC (Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Ga Tech, Flo St)
15%	Big 12 (Oklahoma, K-State, WVU)
15%	Big East (Prov, St. Js, Rutgers, SH)
15%	Big Ten (Wisconsin, Iowa, NW)
15%	Conference USA (Central FL, ECU, UAB)
10%	Mountain West (San Diego State)

Below is the rest of the RPI Forecast list starting at the top and going through the 9-seed, the point at which the list above stops.

RPI Forecast	Seed	Spoiler%	Team	W-L	Conf
1	1		Duke	29-2	ACC
2	1		Louisville	26-5	BE
3	1		Syracuse	27-4	BE
4	1		Minnesota	24-7	B10
5	2		Florida	27-3	SEC
6	2		Kansas	26-5	B12
7	2		Gonzaga	26-4	WCC
8	2		Arizona	24-4	P12
9	3		Indiana	26-5	B10
10	3		Michigan	24-6	B10
11	3		Cincinnati	25-6	BE
12	3		Virginia Commonwealth	26-5	A10
13	4		Miami FL	20-8	ACC
14	4		Pittsburgh	26-5	BE
15	4		Wyoming	22-6	MWC
16	4		New Mexico	23-8	MWC
17	5		Illinois	22-9	B10
18	5		Ohio St.	22-8	B10
19	5		Boise St.	19-9	MWC
20	5		Butler	22-8	A10
21	6		Nevada Las Vegas	23-7	MWC
22	6		Colorado	19-11	P12
23	6		Creighton	26-4	MVC
24	6		Belmont	21-5	OVC
25	7		Wichita St.	24-6	MVC
26	7		Oregon	23-8	P12
27	7		Mississippi	23-6	SEC
28	7		North Carolina	20-10	ACC
29	8		Oklahoma St.	22-8	B12
30	8		Missouri	22-9	SEC
31	8		Middle Tennessee	26-5	SB
32	8		Michigan St.	19-11	B10
33	9		North Carolina St.	21-10	ACC
34	9		Kentucky	22-9	SEC
35	9		Bucknell	24-5	Pat
36	9		Iowa St.	22-9	B12