Heading into the final week of February, the Utah State men’s basketball team is about as assured a spot in the NCAA Tournament as mid-majors are capable of being prior to the month of March. According to multiple analytics projections, the Aggies are virtual locks. ESPN’s bubble watch puts them at a 97 percent chance to be in the Big Dance as of its most recent update early Monday morning with the Barttorvik “TourneyCast” giving USU a perfect 100 percent shot at needing a good pair of dancing shoes.
The human-based predictions are just as optimistic. Of the 105 bracket predictions analyzed by BracketMatrix.com (ranging from the more well-known Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm to the lesser-known blogs and hobbyists), the Aggies were in all of them, with an average predicted seed of 8.56.
Utah State’s entire season has built up to appearing in the NCAA Tournament, so what can just this next week bring in terms of implications for March?
Well, quite a bit, all things considered.
For starters, it’s a very tough week. The Aggies will play two Quad 1 road games, starting with Boise State (19-8) on Wednesday and then Colorado State (18-9) on Saturday. And with quality games comes more opportunity, something that’s a bit harder in mid-major conferences. USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun noted the difference in how many Quad 1 games teams in high-major, or power conferences, can get as opposed to leagues lower on the ladder.
“A power four [team], you have sometimes 20 opportunities in league play, maybe 16, 17. So, when you get these opportunities, you have to take advantage,” Calhoun said. “And to me, it’s about winning in tough environments. That’s what good teams can do. We’ve done that at San Diego State, at Nevada, at Saint Mary’s, multiple teams, neutral site, right? So you hope the committee values that, but these are two big time opportunities.”
Furthermore, if Utah State manages to win the rest if its games in the regular season and, the current first place team, lost at least once then USU would claim a share of the title even though the Lobos swept the season series. That sweep would give New Mexico the top seed in the conference tournament, but not an outright title.
Beyond that fact, there’s still plenty more. Even with a virtual guarantee of making the field of 68, Utah State has work to do. That primarily involves ensuring the best seed possible to produce the highest odds of making a run in the tournament.
Getting an eight seed last year, which tied the 2018-19 Craig Smith-led Aggies for the highest seed in the NCAA Tournament, helped in getting that elusive first win in the round of 64 in 2001, but it led to a brutal second-round matchup against the eventual national runner-up Purdue and its behemoth Naismith Player of the Year center, Zach Edey. Being the winner of the eight/nine seed matchup is hardly a reward and almost always ends in a quick loss after the exciting win.
Since the expansion to 64 teams in 1985, the combined second round record of eight and nine seeds is 24-132 (.154). Mind you, two of those wins were against the historic first-round upsets of 16 seeds — UMBC in 2018 and Farleigh Dickinson in 2023 — so the eight/nine seed line has 22 wins over one seeds in 39 tournaments (fun fact, both the teams that beat 16 seeds in the second round went on decent runs — Kansas State beat UMBC and made it to the Elite Eight and Florida Atlantic, which beat FDU, went on to appear in the Final Four).
Oddly enough, if you’re eying a Sweet 16 run (or beyond), you’re better off with a 10, 11, and even a 12 seed, than you are an eight or nine seed. The probability for eight/nine seeds to make the Sweet 16, based on the historical win percentages, are lower than seeds 10-12, and that’s including the likelihood of 10-12 teams losing to their first round opponents, the five to seven seeds.
NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 Probability
| Seed | Sweet 16 Probability |
|---|---|
| 1 | 84.6% |
| 2 | 63.5% |
| 3 | 52.6% |
| 4 | 47.4% |
| 5 | 34.6% |
| 6 | 28.8% |
| 7 | 18.6% |
| 8 | 10.3% |
| 9 | 5.1% |
| 10 | 15.4% |
| 11 | 17.3% |
| 12 | 14.1% |
| 13 | 3.8% |
| 14 | 1.3% |
| 15 | 2.6% |
| 16 | 0.0% |
Utah State is currently trending toward the eight/nine line once again. The aforementioned Bracket Matrix website projects USU as an eight seed with all 105 brackets analyzed putting it no higher than an eight seed but no lower than 10. That could be a problem for a potential run. But barring the Aggies deliberately tanking their seed to end up as a 10 or 11, there’s only one option for creating the best NCAA Tournament run odds possible — win the rest of their games.
How likely is that to occur? Depends on which analytics site you consult for the odds for each of Utah State’s remaining games. Speaking strictly about just the regular season, KenPom gives USU a hair under 18 percent chance to win out with a projected record of 25-6. ESPN’s matchup predictor percentages are more optimistic, giving a 22.1 percent chance for the Aggies to win out. The ESPN BPI predicts a final record of 26-5 (the difference between KenPom and ESPN mainly being that ESPN favors USU against Colorado State while KenPom does not).
How well Utah State does in these next two games, combined with how the Aggies fare in the Mountain West Conference Tournament, will lead to a fairly wide variety of not only hardware the team could bring home, but also which seed USU could end up with in the NCAA Tournament. And while it can be a herculean task to try and project where the Aggies could wind up given the host of potential ways this season can end, one tool can help.
Barttorvik, in addition to a well-respected ranking metric, has a tool called Teamcast or “T-Ranketology Forecast” which can be found among other tools on the Barttorvik website. Using this tool, we’ll simulate several different kinds of scenarios (many of which will be grouped together for brevity) to see where Utah State could end up in the NCAA Tournament, a feature of the Teamcast tool being a prediction of what seed a team will get based on the combination of wins and losses entered into the form. Not every possible scenario will be listed as that number could rise into the hundreds, but most realistic scenarios will be covered in one way or the other.
Obviously, Barttorvik’s projections are not the end-all-be-all and cannot predict the whims of the NCAA Selection Committee. After all, many bracketologists (Barttorvik’s projections included) had Utah State as a six seed last year and the Aggies were slapped with the eight seed instead. This exercise is mostly an attempt to use the tools and analytics available to try and predict the future. Yet even at this point in time there are a lot of branching paths that lead to anything from the Aggies setting a new all-time high for NCAA seed or even ending up playing in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.
As a note on methodology for the upcoming analysis, all scenarios will be based on variations of how Utah State does this week (0-2, 1-1 or 2-0), combined with various levels of success in the Mountain West Tournament, with a base assumption that Utah State will at the very least end up beating Air Force at home in the regular season finale. If we’re not assuming that, then…well we’re just going to roll with the Aggies getting that win for sure.
SCENARIO 1 – The Worst-ish Case
Utah State loses both games to Boise State and Colorado State and loses in first or second game game of the Mountain West Tournament
If Utah State loses to both BSU and CSU, that would likely put the Aggies in the 4-seed vs 5-seed second round matchup of the Mountain West Tournament. The most realistic combination of scenarios lead to USU facing any one of Boise State, Colorado State or San Diego State. All very winnable, but also very losable games. In this scenario, the Aggies crash out in their first game of the conference tournament.
According to Barttorvik, this would put Utah State as the last nine seed, i.e., just barely avoiding being a 10 seed. In fact, the line is thin enough that Barttorvik projected USU being a nine seed in the cases where it lost to Boise State and San Diego State in the conference tournament, but a 10 seed if it lost to Colorado State (the Rams being notably lower in ranking than the other two).
There’s also a very likely case where Utah State wins its first game in the 4/5 matchup but then loses what would likely be a third game of the season against New Mexico. In this case, the Aggies are a little safer in the prospect of a nine seed, but still far from a guarantee to not end up on the 10 seed line.
SCENARIO 2 – The Regular Season Redemption Case
Utah State loses both games to Boise State and Colorado State but makes it to the Mountain West Tournament championship game
This would be quite the redemption run because if Utah State were to end up in the 4/5 game, a run to the conference tournament title game would most likely mean beating New Mexico and then two of San Diego State, Boise State and Colorado State. That’d be a heck of a three-game run, though certainly not out of the capabilities of the Aggies. For what it’s worth, multiple computer prediction models predict Utah State to lose both games this week, though most of that has to do with them being on the road. All of them favor the Aggies over any team in the conference, save for New Mexico, on a neutral court. That could end up playing out in reality in the coming weeks.
Making a run to the title game would pretty much make up for any and all ground lost by the Aggies were they to lose to BSU and CSU. A lot of projections have Utah State around the nine seed and were this scenario to play out that’s where they’d most likely end up. A win or loss in the MWT title game itself wouldn’t really move the needle one way or the other.
SCENARIO 3 – The Mediocre Case
Utah State wins one of the games at Boise State and Colorado State but loses in first or second game game of the Mountain West Tournament
Working out the Mountain West Tournament seeding gets a bit different here since winning at least one of BSU/CSU guarantees the two seed for the Aggies as they’d either beat CSU on tiebreakers or be too far ahead of Boise State for them to come into play (again, assuming a win over Air Force on March 8). This probably means a second round matchup with the winner of the 7-seed and 10-seed teams which would be UNLV/Nevada and Fresno State/Air Force, respectively. Assuming UNLV would be the seven seed (since they’re probably going to drop behind Nevada with Dedan Thomas possibly being out the remainder of the year), we’ll work with this.
In any scenario that doesn’t involve an upset in the 7/10 game (where Utah State could end up losing to Fresno State or Air Force), the Aggies end up as a comfortable nine seed. In the horrifying case USU does end up losing to one of them, that could send it spiraling into a 10-seed for the NCAA Tournament, with Barttorvik projecting exactly that for both a loss to Fresno State and Air Force in the second round.
SCENARIO 4 – The Fairly Decent Case
Utah State wins one of the games at Boise State and Colorado State and makes it to the Mountain West Tournament championship game
- Likely Seed — 8 with title game win, 9 with loss in title game
The combination of scenarios here offers one of the broadest in all of these simulations. Splitting the BSU/CSU games limits the Aggies potential, but a run to the conference title game would put them on the fringe of an eight seed, with a win maybe getting them there and a loss leaving them in nine seed territory, or a 10 seed if the selection committee decides to be mean about it. Getting one last Quad 1 win against the presumed opponent in the conference title game, New Mexico, would be the biggest factor in getting up to an eight seed. But even if it were San Diego State, Colorado State or Boise State the Aggies defeated in the title game, an eight seed would still be very possible.
Whatever the future brings, it’s most likely to fall within this group of scenarios. The Aggies are plenty good enough to win at least one of the games this week and make a run to the conference title game. Winning or losing ever game between now and March 15 is always possible, but a mix of the two, leaning toward twice as many wins as losses, tracks with the capabilities USU has shown to this point in the season.
SCENARIO 5 – The Second-Best Case
Utah State wins both of the games at Boise State and Colorado State but loses in first or second game game of the Mountain West Tournament
- Likely Seed — 8 seed if they make it to the semifinal, 9 seed with a loss in second round
If the Aggies won out, they’d have an outside shot at getting a share of the regular season conference title, though nabbing the one seed away from New Mexico would be a very unlikely scenario (Barttorvik’s model gives USU 7.4 percent odds at the one seed). So in this case we’ll be looking at the same potential conference tournament matchups for USU as a two seed in the Mountain West.
As exciting as winning out would be for the Aggies, a loss in the second round of the conference tournament would undo the progress those wins would gain. Punch in a loss to UNLV in the simulation and Barttorvik spits out USU as a nine seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Aggies would be close to an eight seed, but just behind teams like Memphis and UConn. If the Aggies avoid disaster and manage to at least make it to the semifinal, an eight seed would be much more likely, especially if to a higher rated team like San Diego State or Boise State that wouldn’t hurt USU’s resume.
SCENARIO 6 – The Ideal Case
Utah State wins both of the games at Boise State and Colorado State and makes it to the Mountain West Tournament championship game
- Likely Seed — 7 seed with title game win, 8 seed with loss in title game
Here we reach the pinnacle of Utah State’s potential in seeding. If Utah State were to make it to the title game having won every game from now until that point, it would become rather hard to short the Aggies a more favorable seed. A loss would limit things to some degree, which is why an eight seed remains a likely possibility in this group of scenarios. In winning out, though, Utah State’s resume would be rather impressive.
A Utah State team that hoists the conference tournament trophy, having not lost since _, would have an overall record of 30-4, a win in the Mountain West Conference Tournament, possibly a regular season title on top of that, and a very good resume of Quad 1 wins. The Aggies would likely boast a 6-1 mark in Quad 1 games and 15-4 record in all Quad 1/2 games with zero losses in any Quad 3/4 games.
Precedent would also side with the Aggies in rising above the eight/nine seed games. Since 1985, no team that won 30+ games and came from a conference that put multiple teams in the tournament that season, has been seeded worth than a seven.
This is the scenario in which Utah State stands to gain the most in both ease of a first round win and potential for a run to the Sweet 16 for the first time since the expansion to 64 teams.
