The Tigers could shake the bubble this week

*Throughout the rest of the season, Bluff City Media will track Memphis’ NCAA tournament resume every week. Using the NET rankings, KenPom rankings, and ESPN bracketology, we will keep you updated on where the Tigers are ranked.

School	Record	Road	Neutral	Home	Quad 1	Quad 2	Quad 3	Quad 4
Memphis	22-7	6-5	3-1	13-1	2-3	7-3	7-1	6-0

The Memphis Tigers are now 22-7 overall and 12-4 in American Athletic Conference (AAC) play after a 2-0 week with a thrilling road victory at Wichita State and an impressive turned-ugly home victory over the Cincinnati Bearcats. Thanks to back-to-back losses from the Tulane Green Wave, the Tigers are now 2nd in the conference standings with a 1.5-game lead with 2 games remaining for the Tigers and 3 games remaining for Tulane. The Tigers moved up in the Net rankings from 40th last week to 39th this week but moved down in the KenPom rankings from 35th last week to 39th this week.

In ESPN’s latest Bracketology (released on 2/28/23), Joe Lunardi still has the Tigers in the “Last Four Byes” on the NCAA tournament bubble but dropped them from the No. 9 seed last week to No. 10 seed in the Midwest (Kansas City) region. CBS Sports Bracketology Expert, Jerry Palm, still the Tigers as a No. 10 seed in the East (New York) region in his latest bracket prediction (released on 2/28/23).

To finish the last week of the regular season, the Memphis Tigers travel to Dallas Thursday night to take on the SMU Mustangs in a Quad 3 game as the Mustangs are currently ranked 199th in the NET rankings before returning home Sunday morning for the ultimate resume boosting and possibly tournament clinching opportunity against the No. 1 ranked Houston Cougars.

Quadrant	Home	Neutral	Away
Q1	1-30	1-50	1-75
Q2	31-75	51-100	76-135
Q3	76-160	101-200	136-240
Q4	161+	201+	241+

Quadrant Definition by NET Rank

The early March Madness continued last week for the Tigers as they won a couple of games that went down to the wire. The “Survive and Advance” quote coined by the late Jim Valvano is what matters the most this time of the year. It is not about how you win but to actually get the win and the Tigers have done just that lately winning 5 of their last 6 games.

This is a big week for the Tigers as the Houston game lingers but they have business to take care of first before getting to that game Sunday. SMU is 10-19 and is 2nd to last in the AAC conference standings. Losing that game is not an option so the Tigers can’t get caught looking ahead of Thursday night’s tilt as losing that game could do more damage than winning Sunday’s matchup could do good for them. We are officially entering the month of March!