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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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BOULDER, COLORADO – FEBRUARY 08: Evan Battey #21 of the Colorado Buffaloes is comforted by Tyrell Terry #3 of the Stanford Cardinal (Photo by Lizzy Barrett/Getty Images)
BOULDER, COLORADO – FEBRUARY 08: Evan Battey #21 of the Colorado Buffaloes is comforted by Tyrell Terry #3 of the Stanford Cardinal (Photo by Lizzy Barrett/Getty Images) /

Stanford (16-9, 5-7 Pac-12)

An early darling of advanced analytics in 2019-20, Stanford jumped out as a surprise team in the Pac-12 over the first few months of the season. Just a month ago, the Cardinal was sitting at 15-2 overall and 4-0 in league play, but their star has faded into oblivion after dropping seven of their past eight games. The loss of Oscar da Silva has not helped any, either.

After taking road losses to Utah and Colorado to kick off February, Jerod Haase’s team returned home to Palo Alto to host the Arizona schools this past week. On Thursday, it was Arizona State coming into Maples Pavilion. The Sun Devils have been quietly boosting their stock while Stanford’s has been falling, and the 74-69 win that Bobby Hurley orchestrated may have been the final push to propel ASU past the Cardinal and into the bracket.

Stanford needed a bounce-back win over Arizona to stop the hemorrhaging, but in yet another turn of bad fortune for the Cardinal, the Wildcats managed to squeeze out a rare road victory.

As it stands, Stanford still has a very competitive NET ranking. The other metrics are not quite so hot on them, though, with ESPN’s Strength of Resume measure and Jeff Sagarin’s ratings both currently showing the Cardinal outside the Top 75.

Even looking past the computers, the profile isn’t very strong for Stanford. They have two Quadrant 1 wins over Oregon and Oklahoma, which are the only reason they are still in this conversation. A home win over last-place Washington and a road win over a disappointing UCLA team are the only other victories in the top two tiers.

Add in the road loss to Cal, which will likely stay a Quadrant 3 game in perpetuity, and this is a team with a very grim view of the bubble. Personally, I currently have Stanford on the outside looking in—though they are very close to being back in with some help.

Joining the Cardinal on the outskirts of the bracket is our next team, whose sudden fall is contributing to a very down year for the SEC.

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