Nebraska has played itself off the bubble...for now
Nebraska has played itself off the bubble...for now
A three-game winning streak has provided a serious boost to the Huskers' tournament chances.
In or out? One question, two answers, the next three weeks for Nebraska basketball.
The Huskers narrowly avoided another second-half meltdown Wednesday night to pick up their first road win in Big Ten play, beating Indiana 85-70. With four games remaining—Minnesota, at Ohio State, Rutgers, at Michigan—Nebraska (19-8, 9-7) may have played itself off the bubble and into the NCAA Tournament.
For now, of course.
There’s still basketball to be played, but after the Indiana win, Nebraska’s third straight, the Team Rankings model1 put the Huskers’ chances of making the tournament field at 77%. On Feb. 1, with Nebraska sitting at 15-6, this model gave NU just a 9% chance of making the field.
That’s the second biggest gain nationally over the past three weeks, trailing only Washington State which went from 12.9% to 89.5%. The Cougars have won seven straight and 10 of their last 11 in Pac-12 play.
Over at the Bracket Matrix, which compiles 106 different bracket projections, the Huskers made the field in 104 of them on Feb. 21. Both the Matrix and Team Rankings had NU sitting close to a 10-seed as of now.
Pure positivity acknowledged, there is still some work to be done here. If the Huskers’ have a “magic number,” it might be 21 regular-season wins. That’s the win total where Nebraska’s tournament odds take a big leap at Team Rankings.
Getting there would require a 2-2 record over the final four games. Nebraska will likely be favored in three of those games with Team Rankings projecting a better than 70% win probability against Minnesota and Rutgers, the two home games, and a 57% win probability at Michigan in the regular-season finale. With a 42% win probability at Ohio State Feb. 29, the Huskers project as a slight underdog there.
We’ll see how things shake out. The Huskers remain a volatile team—capable of building a 22-point lead at Indiana and nearly capable of losing that lead—but credit it where it’s due. After tough back-to-back losses at Illinois and Northwestern, Nebraska buckled down and beat Michigan by 20, Penn State by 19 and Indiana by 15.
Big Red is a good bet to be dancing because of it.
Odds & Ends
A few other stories from around the college sports universe that caught my eye this week:
EA Sports’ beloved college football video game is officially returning this summer, and we learned this week how much the company is paying players to have their name, image and likeness included––$600. Those who opt in will also get a free copy of the game. EA plans for that offer to go out to all 85 scholarship players on every FBS roster, though some schools have yet to confirm they’ve signed on to be part of the game. Nebraska announced it will be Thursday.
Ameer Abdullah, film star? According to Detroit radio station WWJ the former Husker and Lion (among others) has landed a role in a new movie, “Break the Cycle.” Vivica A. Fox and Cuba Gooding Jr. are set to star in the film.
The College Football Playoff leadership officially made the change everyone knew it would, adopting a “5+7” model for the 12-team playoff, which will include the top five conference champions plus the next seven highest-ranked at-large teams. Back before the Pac-12 was just a memory, the model was set to include six conference champions so this change simply reflects the loss of a power league. Of course there are already playoff projections out there, but if you’re interested in what this format would’ve produced over the previous decade, I wrote about that last month. Also, CFP leaders are reportedly already discussing a move to a 14- or 16-team model in 2026.
I already tackled ESPN’s returning production rankings and what they could mean for Nebraska in 2024, but if you want a slightly different measure of the same thing Action Network has released its calculations. The Huskers rank fourth nationally via this method (they were third at ESPN). While these rankings are about experience, this line jumped out at me: “The jury is still out on the correlation between the transfer portal and winning the National Championship. Two seasons ago, both USC and LSU dominated in the transfer portal before falling short of the College Football Playoff. Colorado was then the portal destination a season ago but failed to qualify for a bowl game. In fact, none of the eight teams that made the College Football Playoff over the previous two years finished top-10 in the transfer portal rankings.”
A description of the model from Team Rankings: “Every day, we run thousands of computer simulations of the college basketball season, including all remaining regular season games, all conference tournaments, NCAA selection and seeding, and the NCAA tournament itself.”