Bracketology 2023: 8 teams in danger of sliding out of NCAA Tournament

Wisconsin Badgers

Over a month ago, the Badgers were safely into the field, with a top-30 NET ranking and plenty of favorable metrics. But then they suffered a key injury to Tyler Wahl, who at the time was the team’s leading scorer and rebounder. He was out for three straight games, all of whom ended up being losses.

Wahl did eventually return but after the win over Penn State, then went on another 3-game losing skid that included losses to Northwestern and Maryland. They’ve since spilt the past six games, with one of them being a loss at Nebraska.

The issue for Wisconsin is that they haven’t beaten anyone projected to make the NCAA Tournament (assuming Penn State is out for now) since the win over Iowa on December 11th. They’ve lost to every good team in the Big Ten and the only thing that’s keeping them on the bubble is the non-conference win over Marquette on the road, which is a quality signature victory.

Outside of that, you have a team that’s a combined 9-11 in Quad 1/2 games and just four games over .500. They have two home games against a pair of NCAA Tournament teams coming up in Iowa and Purdue. If they can’t beat the Boilermakers, they must either beat the Hawkeyes at home or against Michigan on the road to not have to win three games in the Big Ten Tournament.