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Bubble breakdown: Purdue continues surge with first big road win
With less than a month remaining until Selection Sunday, the NCAA tournament bubble is beginning to take shape. Bubble Breakdown is the Dagger's daily look at the results that impact who's in and who's out.
The most glaring flaw in Purdue's rapidly improving resume no longer is an issue.
The Boilermakers beat a quality opponent on the road for the first time this season when they completed a season sweep of in-state rival Indiana on Thursday night with a 67-63 victory in Bloomington.
Until Thursday, Purdue's only road wins this season came against Big Ten lightweights Northwestern, Penn State and Rutgers. The Boilermakers added a win at Indiana by taking advantage of their size and strength advantage in the paint, getting 20 points on 8-for-9 shooting from starting center A.J. Hammons and 12 from backup Isaac Haas.
Purdue's victory keeps the Boilermakers (18-9, 10-4) in a second-place tie with Maryland in the Big Ten race, three games behind first-place Wisconsin. Second place in the Big Ten would make most teams a surefire NCAA tournament team, but Purdue endured a poor non-conference season, falling to the likes of Gardner Webb, Kansas State, North Florida and Vanderbilt.
The Boilermakers have gradually atoned for their early-season sins, winning seven of their last eight games including the sweep of the rival Hoosiers and home wins against Ohio State and Iowa. They aren't safe by any means, but even if they win their remaining home games against Rutgers and Illinois and lose on the road at Ohio State and Michigan State, they would still be in decent position entering the Big Ten tournament.
Pretty impressive from Purdue considering where it stood at the end of non-league play.
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BUBBLE TEAMS WHOSE STOCK ROSE THURSDAY
BYU (21-8, 11-5 WCC): Many mock brackets have BYU close to making the field. If so, that's a major indictment of this year's crop of bubble teams. Only four of the Cougars' victories this season have come against RPI top 100 opponents, and none of those teams are certain to make the NCAA tournament. Stanford has the best shot and UMass and Saint Mary's are both on the fringes of the bubble picture. An RPI in the 60s and a lack of marquee wins wouldn't be as damaging if BYU had managed to avoid losses to lesser teams, but the Cougars were swept by Pepperdine and also fell at San Diego. While avenging the loss to the Toreros on Thursday night certainly helps, BYU may have to beat Gonzaga once to sneak into the field of 68, whether that's in Spokane a week from Saturday or in Las Vegas at the WCC tournament.
Ole Miss (18-8, 9-4 SEC): One thing the Rebels do better than their peers is win on the road. Stefan Moody had 29 points and sank eight 3-pointers to lead Ole Miss to a come-from-behind 71-65 road win at rival Mississippi State. The Rebels are now 7-3 in true road games, a big reason they'd be solidly in the NCAA tournament were the season to end today. Ole Miss has a profile very much like Purdue's as it suffered bad losses to Charleston Southern, TCU and Western Kentucky in non-league play but has since offset those with wins over Oregon, Cincinnati, Arkansas and Texas A&M. The Rebels have five SEC games left against teams below them in the league standings. Win at least three, and they'll be safe entering their conference tournament.
Iowa (16-10, 7-6 Big Ten): You can't make the NCAA tournament by beating Rutgers, but you can certainly miss it by losing. Iowa avoided that fate Thursday, snapping a two-game losing streak by clobbering the Scarlet Knights 81-47. Iowa's profile is a weird one, littered with big wins and too man losses. The most impressive victories were a sweep of Ohio State, a road win at North Carolina and a home win against Maryland. Offsetting those are 10 losses including one at home to Minnesota and another at Northwestern. Iowa would probably be in the field were the season to end today, but the Hawkeyes can't take on too many more losses of any kind. Anything less than a 3-2 finish to the regular season would be worrisome since that would mean Iowa would carry 14 losses on Selection Sunday unless it won the Big Ten tournament.
Dayton (20-5, 10-3 A-10): When Dayton lost its only two scholarship big men before Atlantic 10 play began, the Flyers seemed unlikely to even finish in the upper half of the league. All they've done since is seize a share of first place and all but lock up a return trip to the NCAA tournament despite only having six scholarship players and none taller than 6-foot-6. Thursday's 68-64 win over St. Joseph's was a little shaky, but it got the job done. The Flyers are 30th in the RPI, have no bad losses on their resume and boast quality victories against Texas A&M and Ole Miss. Their league schedule has been weak but they'll face fellow first-place teams VCU and Rhode Island before the regular season ends.
BUBBLE TEAMS WHOSE STOCK FELL TUESDAY
Temple (19-8, 10-4 A-10): Temple is still in a good shape, but the Owls missed a chance to move closer to securing an NCAA tournament bid. They couldn't hold an eight-point halftime lead at first-place SMU as Nic Moore scored 18 points to lead the Mustangs to a 67-58 home victory. The biggest win Temple has is a huge one — a 77-52 rout of Big 12 leader Kansas back in December. Cincinnati is the only other RPI top 50 opponent Temple has beaten but the Owls still have a top 40 RPI because they only have two losses against teams outside the RPI top 50 as well, to UNLV and St. Joseph's.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
