Hello everyone! New subscriber here so forgive me if it's been discussed already.
Who is a bubble team that shouldn't be a bubble team and why?
I'll go Tulane out of the American. a 13-11 conference record with one weekend to go. Yes I know they only have three Q1 wins. Those 3 are in fact pretty big: a sweep of #6 ECU that concluded today with a 10-9 walk off win in extras. These along with road series wins at FAU, Rice, and a surging Wichita State team are notches in their belt. While i'm not really for moral victories, Tulane was also a few pitches away from easily sweeping a now top 25 UL Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns squad. I think a solid showing in Clearwater should put Tulane as a high 4/low 3 seed in the final 64. Who is your pick for a bubble team that shouldn't be on the bubble?
Well, I hate to burst your "bubble" but Tulane probably isn't even a bubble team right now. They have an RPI of #100 (that's a 29 place jump from last week) which is about 50 too low to even be considered as "on the bubble." They have 3 games @ a pretty good Charlotte this weekend who is sporting a #125 RPI so no real way to jump up much higher. Unless they win the AAC tourney they won't make the field.
The bubble at this point probably includes teams (w/RPI) like Louisville (62), Virginia Tech (55), Kansas St (34), TCU (38), UCF (40), Kansas (65), Utah (71), LSU (34), Ole Miss (24), Coastal (37), UConn (42), St. John's (51), etc.
Most of those firmly deserve to be on the bubble in my opinion. Their next 3-5 games will tell us a lot.
I like this kind of discussion and appreciate the topic. There are a lot of conferences that could see a team get a hot run in the conference tourney and steal a bid. There are also some teams (looking at you LSU/Ole Miss) that might not get enough conference wins to get themselves on the right side of the bubble and into the conversation despite pretty sterling RPIs.
