Yes, the NCAA Bubble Watch is officially in high gear.
Who’s in…who’s out…who’s sitting on the bubble? Those are the questions that circulate wildly every early March. Sometimes a team can move from the outside looking in, to one of the teams on their way to the Big Dance by how well they play in February and March.
For the Georgia Bulldogs, their end of regular season run and 3rd place finish in the SEC may look good on paper (or flat screen) but will it be enough to make send them to the 2014 NCAA Tournament?
The problem for Georgia isn’t going to be the work they did late in the season, it’s going to be overcoming some of the bad early losses, as well as a low RPI.
By bad losses, we mean dumping games to Georgia Tech, Davidson and Temple – all teams that (judging by their play of late) Georgia should have been able to handle. Losses like that are going to be tough for the committee to overlook.
But on the plus side, the Bulldogs did go 2-0 against Missouri, a team that many feel like is solidly on the bubble if not in the tourney, and finished with the same number of SEC losses (6) as #25 Kentucky.
Their 69-61 win in the final regular season game against LSU–another team hoping to squeak their way into the tourney–could be the final piece that gives Georgia the edge over a few other teams looking find themselves tournament-bound.
None of the major prognosticators have Georgia on their bubble list…yet. It might take some serious work in the SEC tournament to convince the committee to give the Bulldogs a shot.
Or, they could just go and win it and remove all doubt.