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2014 NCAA Bracketology Predictions: Bubble Watch update

We check in with the EBS after last night's action to see who it sees as in and who it sees as out.

By Luke Zimmermann
Mike Lawrie

This past Wednesday, we introduced you to the Boston Celtics' (formerly of Butler) Drew Cannon's Easiest Bubble Solver.

The premise is pretty straight forward: Take a team's RPI ranking, add it to their Ken Pomeroy ranking and you have the EBS, a metric that accurately pegs the teams in the NCAAs at about a 94% accuracy rate, just in line with the top bracketologists online.

SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean (one of the best in the business) revealed his latest picks for who's just barely in, who's close but not close enough, and who his next teams after that are earlier this morning. To try and see where man and machine agree and disagree, we crunched the latest EBS numbers and have them below. Remember, as recently as 2012 the EBS missed but one at-large team, and last year it only missed two.

Safely in

Team RPI KenPom EBS
Arizona 1 1 2
Florida 2 3 5
Wichita St. 4 4 8
Kansas 3 9 12
Creighton 7 6 13
Villanova 6 7 13
Wisconsin 5 10 15
Duke 8 8 16
Virginia 11 5 16
Michigan 10 11 21
Louisville 23 2 25
VCU 13 13 26
San Diego St. 12 16 28
Syracuse 14 14 28
Iowa St. 9 24 33
Gonzaga 17 20 37
Ohio St. 21 17 38
UCLA 19 19 38
Michigan St. 24 15 39
Kentucky 18 22 40
Cincinnati 16 25 41
Connecticut 20 23 43
New Mexico 15 31 46
North Carolina 25 26 51
Tennessee 41 12 53
Oklahoma 27 29 56
Pittsburgh 38 18 56
Baylor 30 28 58
Oregon 29 30 59
Saint Louis 26 35 61
George Washington 28 37 65
Oklahoma St. 44 21 65
Massachusetts 22 51 73
Texas 36 40 76
Harvard 45 33 78
Stanford 40 38 78
BYU 31 49 80
Iowa 54 27 81
Memphis 37 46 83
SMU 53 32 85
Arizona St. 42 45 87
North Dakota St. 34 54 88
Xavier 46 42 88
Louisiana Tech 56 34 90
Colorado 32 62 94
Kansas St. 51 43 94
Nebraska 47 47 94
Southern Miss 33 61 94

Next in line

Team RPI KenPom EBS
Last Four In
Dayton 43 52 95
Florida St. 55 41 96
Providence 48 48 96
Saint Joseph's 39 58 97
First Four Out
Minnesota 49 56 105
St. John's 67 39 106
Utah 78 36 114
Green Bay 58 59 117
Next Four Out
Maryland 73 44 117
North Carolina St. 52 66 118
Georgetown 69 53 122
Illinois 68 55 123

So what do we take away from the findings?

The EBS likes Nebraska a lot more than Dobbertean (though the EBS is far more accurate at in/out versus seeding), who sees Nebraska's collapse against the Buckeyes yesterday as more damning than the computers. Our formula is also more comfortable with SMU and BYU than Chris with his years of experience is.

The Cougars are an interesting litmus test. The committee says they don't use injuries to justify of teams but rather only seeding, but it's awfully hard (even subconsciously) to not factor in the loss of guard Kyle Collinsworth, who suffered a torn ACL in the Cougars' WCC Championship Game loss to Gonzaga. That said, both Dobbertean and the EBS are comfortable with BYU as being in the tournament.

The biggest disagreement between the two comes in the form of the Florida State Seminoles. The 'Noles have three Top 50 wins to go with nine losses against that caliber of team. The EBS, at least as of today, says they're in, while Dobbertean says they're amongst the first four out. FSU's (relatively) high KenPom ranking probably has a good deal to do with the former.

So what do you think? Are BYU and Dayton in? Is Nebraska on thin ice or can Tim Miles and company rest on the laurels of their season ending victory over Wisconsin?

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