Making Chicken Soup Out Of...

A week ago, Marquette reached their highest point on my S-Curve of the young season, reaching #22 as the second-highest 6-seed. Two losses later and they are at the lowest point of the season, falling 14 spots to #36 as the last 9-seed. Since panic mode basically defines the Marquette fanbase, I thought I'd discuss what they need to do to get a bid.

What I'm going to do is use T-Rank to approximate where Marquette would be with various results. I am starting with a 7-11 conference record, projecting wins in all the home games except Butler. I will then add wins one at a time. I will also try to find a comparison for Marquette to a team from last year's NCAA field, the first year NET was used.

17-13 (7-11)
Q1: 3-11 / Q2: 7-1 / Q3: 2-1 / Q4: 5-0

According to T-Rank, this would have us in the field as the last buy, so narrowly avoiding Dayton. For our comparison team, we will use Florida, who went 17-14 and had quadrant numbers of 3-11 in Q1, 3-1 in Q2, 6-2 in Q3, and 5-0 in Q4. I would also like to remind readers that Florida team made the field and did so somewhat comfortably as a 100-seed. Honestly, the biggest difference between this Marquette resume and that Florida resume is Marquette having a more difficult Q2/3 split with better results. That said, I think 7-11 would still be very unnerving come Selection Sunday and depend on how the computer numbers viewed Marquette. It would give us a chance, however.

18-12 (8-10)
Q1: 4-10 / Q2: 7-1 / Q3: 2-1 / Q4: 5-0

According to T-Rank, this moves us up two spots, but one of the lessons we learned last year was that who you beat matters.Getting this 8th win will mean getting one on the road. The most likely is DePaul according to the projections, which would help, but far more so if they remain Quadrant 1. They are at the moment, so we will leave them there for our purposes, but beating Xavier, Villanova, or Butler on the road would be far more positive. For a comparison, let's look at Mississippi from last year. They went 20-11 with quadrant splits of 4-10 in Q1, 3-1 in Q2, 7-0 in Q3, and 6-0 in Q4. Mississippi earned an 8-seed with that. I think Marquette's quantity of Q2 wins would likely offset the Q3 loss they suffered, but that's still one more total loss so this should get us to a 9-seed. Safely in, but not so safe you don't wipe a few sweat beads.

19-11 (9-9)
Q1: 4-10 / Q2: 8-0 / Q3: 2-1 / Q5: 5-0

This adds the Providence road win, which takes away one of the sub-Q1 losses. Now this is a virtually identical comparison to that Ole Miss team from the last example. If Marquette gets to .500 in league play, expect an 8-seed or better.


While silver linings are hard to see after a couple losses, this team is still in position that they can get a bid. Personally, just getting a bid would be a disappointment, but you can't make a run in March if you aren't in the field in the first place, so from that unfortunate perspective we move forward. 7-11 gives us a chance, 8-10 likely gets us in, and 9-9 or better would have this team safely in the field of 68 on Selection Sunday. It's even possible this team could get in at 6-12, but it would depend heavily on who they beat, such as a sweep of Butler included in those wins. Here's the entire field as it stands:

1-Seeds: 1-BUTLER 2-BAYLOR 3-GONZAGA 4-DUKE
2-Seeds: 8-AUBURN 7-West Virginia 6-Kansas 5-SAN DIEGO STATE
3-Seeds: 9-OREGON 10-Florida State 11-DAYTON 12-MICHIGAN STATE
4-Seeds: 16-Seton Hall 15-Louisville 14-Villanova 13-WICHITA STATE
5-Seeds: 17-Maryland 18-Michigan 19-Ohio State 20-Kentucky
6-Seeds: 24-Indiana 23-Penn State 22-Stanford 21-Creighton
7-Seeds: 25-Colorado 26-Arizona 27-Arkansas 28-Iowa
8-Seeds: 32-Memphis 31-Virginia Tech 30-Wisconsin 29-Oklahoma
9-Seeds: 33-Rutgers 34-Lsu 35-Byu 36-Marquette
10-Seeds: 40-Usc 39-Vcu 38-St. Mary's 37-Illinois
11-Seeds: 41-Xavier 42-Oklahoma State 43-Purdue/44-Tennessee 45-St. John's/46-St. Louis
12-Seeds: 50-AKRON 49-YALE 48-NORTHERN IOWA 47-LIBERTY
13-Seeds: 51-EAST TENNESSEE STATE 52-LOUISIANA TECH 53-STEPHEN F AUSTIN 54-BELMONT
14-Seeds: 58-WRIGHT STATE 57-NEW MEXICO STATE 56-NORTHERN COLORADO 55-GEORGIA STATE
15-Seeds: 59-STONY BROOK 60-WILLIAM & MARY 61-COLGATE 62-SOUTH DAKOTA STATE
16-Seeds: 68-NORFOLK STATE/67-ROBERT MORRIS 66-GRAMBLING/65-QUINNIPIAC 64-WINTHROP 63-UC IRVINE

NIT 1-Seeds: Texas Tech, Minnesota, DePaul, Arizona State
NIT 2-Seeds: Georgetown, Florida, Houston, Oregon State

Also Considered: Utah, Georgia, NC State, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Utah State, Virginia, Washington

Multi-bid Leagues
Big 10: 11
Big East: 7
Big 12: 5
Pac-12:5
SEC: 5
ACC: 4
WCC: 3
Atlantic-10: 3
American: 2