Bracketology 2020: Duke, Texas Tech and Utah State among biggest losers

Another week down, another week closer to Selection Sunday. But for these five teams, that just means there’s less time to recover from late-season slip-ups. Welcome to Bracketology Losers.

While this past week did not feature as many high-profile losses as last week did, there were still plenty of bracketology headlines to go around over the past few days. For example, Baylor was once considered a lock for a #1 seed, but they are suddenly starting to look very mortal. The Bears’ loss to Kansas last week was understandable, even at home; the Jayhawks have the inside track for the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, after all.

But on Saturday, Scott Drew’s club fell to TCU on the road. They weren’t the only squad to suffer a surprising defeat over the weekend, though. As Baylor was falling in Fort Worth, Florida State was sideswiped by a giant-killing Clemson team. Earlier in the day, Providence ran past Villanova in an attempt to boost their chances of realizing their Big Dance dreams. On Sunday, Creighton lost to St. John’s. The pain was aplenty.

Of course, it wasn’t just the top teams that lost. The bubble provided much of its own drama–too much to try to cover all of it here, to be sure. A few of the highlights from around the nation include West Virginia’s continued decline, both Arizona and Arizona State getting swept in their respective trips to SoCal, and a road loss to Georgia that could sink Arkansas’ at-large chances for good this time. Fans of these squads will likely spend the next two weeks constantly refreshing the Bracket Matrix website to see how their teams are stacking up.

It doesn’t help these late-season losers to see teams like Texas and UCLA suddenly surging back into the NCAA Tournament conversation, either. There are a finite number of bids to go around, and though the Selection Committee will try to keep recency bias from taking the reins, it will be hard to ignore the final push from these teams–especially in contrast to the stretch-run stumbles of other bubble teams.

With just under two weeks remaining before Selection Sunday, here’s a look at five teams that did not do themselves any favors the past week. We start out in the ACC, where Blue blood was spilled on more than one occasion.