This has been an unpredictable season in faculty basketball.
It has featured numerous top-10 upsets, parity on the prime and a bubble state of affairs that has been fluid, to say the least. And as we shut in on the tip of convention event week, there’s one staff that may very well be higher poised to reap the benefits of that fluidity than another.
Coach Buzz Williams’ Texas A&M staff entered this week’s SEC Event in Tampa as a March Insanity longshot. However after three wins that arrange a date with Tennessee within the title recreation, the Aggies would possibly simply be capable to sneak into the sector — even when they don’t safe an computerized bid with a convention title on Sunday.
It’s virtually inconceivable that TAMU may very well be on this place. On Feb. 12, it suffered its eighth consecutive loss in what gave the impression to be a doomed marketing campaign. Since then, this has been a very totally different staff.
Three days later, Texas A&M ended the skid with a house win towards Florida and is now one of many hottest groups within the nation, profitable eight of its final 9. Two of the Aggies’ three wins in Tampa this week got here towards projected top-four seeds in SEC regular-season champion Auburn and Arkansas.
In fact, an at-large bid for Texas A&M is much from a given, even with this staff’s late push. Its placement within the NET Rankings at No. 51 just isn’t nice, and neither is its 4-9 document in Quadrant 1 video games this season.
In his most up-to-date bracketology replace on Saturday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi listed the Aggies because the second staff among the many First 4 Out. Nevertheless, he mentioned that relying on the outcomes from fellow bubble groups SMU and Virginia Tech — the latter of which faces off towards Duke on Saturday night time within the ACC Championship — the Aggies might enter the sector.
The Aggies could require some assist if they’ll’t end the job towards the Volunteers, however an unbelievable run during the last month has this staff on the cusp of the large dance.
Insanity, certainly.
