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Bracketology 2020: Louisville, West Virginia and Stanford among biggest losers

By Andrew Dieckhoff

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - JANUARY 07: Jordan Nwora #33 of the Louisville Cardinals during the game against the Miami Hurricanes at KFC YUM! Center on January 07, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - JANUARY 07: Jordan Nwora #33 of the Louisville Cardinals during the game against the Miami Hurricanes at KFC YUM! Center on January 07, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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LAWRENCE, KANSAS – JANUARY 04: Head coach Bob Huggins of the West Virginia Mountaineers talks with Oscar Tshiebwe #34 (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
LAWRENCE, KANSAS – JANUARY 04: Head coach Bob Huggins of the West Virginia Mountaineers talks with Oscar Tshiebwe #34 (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /

West Virginia (18-7, 6-6 Big 12)

Bob Huggins’ defense has been stealing the show for West Virginia, but they needed to go on the offensive and snag two big trophies in the biggest week of their season to date. The Mountaineers had prime chances against two of the four current projected #1 seeds in the Bracket Matrix but came up short against both Kansas and Baylor.

The Mountaineers’ offense was ineffective in both games, averaging just 53 points in the two contests and registering a sub-optimal 0.78 points per possession. The team shot under 30% from deep and struggled mightily with turnovers. West Virginia totaled 41 giveaways on the week.

While Baylor’s victory was almost never in question, the Mountaineers were beating the Jayhawks for much of the game on Wednesday. But Kansas used a 21-6 stretch in the final ten minutes to put away West Virginia, and the hangover from that loss may have tagged along on Saturday’s trip to Waco.

If West Virginia could have scored even one of these victories, they would have been a fairly obvious choice to take over the final #2 spot in the bracket behind the Blue Devils, Flyers, and Terrapins. As mentioned before, Louisville lost twice. Auburn and Seton Hall also lost games.

The opening was there. The Huggy Bears just couldn’t pull it off.

Still, West Virginia has eight victories in the top two Quadrants and don’t have any losses outside of them. That said, their best wins are against Ohio State and Texas Tech. While those will almost surely count as “wins against the field”, they may not buy the Mountaineers as much captial as once thought.

At the moment, WVU is angling toward a 3- or 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament. Neither of these losses should actually hurt West Virginia badly, but they do limit the Mountaineers’ ceiling going forward.

While Louisville and West Virginia were losing ground in the battle at the top of the bracket, a few other teams are clawing to keep from falling all the way out of it—and our next three teams have can’t seem to find their grip.

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