This has been an unpredictable season in college basketball.
It has featured countless top-10 upsets, parity at the top and a bubble situation that has been fluid, to say the least. And as we close in on the end of conference tournament week, there’s one team that could be better poised to take advantage of that fluidity than any other.
Coach Buzz Williams’ Texas A&M team entered this week’s SEC Tournament in Tampa as a March Madness longshot. But after three wins that set up a date with Tennessee in the title game, the Aggies might just be able to sneak into the field — even if they don’t secure an automatic bid with a conference title on Sunday.
How did @aggiembk's Hassan Diarra get this to go in⁉️
He leads all scorers with 10 as Texas A&M leads Arkansas at the half, 36-24. pic.twitter.com/CtnJ0GpfaZ
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) March 12, 2022
It’s almost inconceivable that TAMU could be in this position. On Feb. 12, it suffered its eighth consecutive loss in what appeared to be a doomed campaign. Since then, this has been a completely different team.
Three days later, Texas A&M ended the skid with a home win against Florida and is now one of the hottest teams in the country, winning eight of its last nine. Two of the Aggies’ three wins in Tampa this week came against projected top-four seeds in SEC regular-season champion Auburn and Arkansas.
Of course, an at-large bid for Texas A&M is far from a given, even with this team’s late push. Its placement in the NET Rankings at No. 51 is not great, and neither is its 4-9 record in Quadrant 1 games this season.
In his most recent bracketology update on Saturday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi listed the Aggies as the second team among the First Four Out. However, he said that depending on the results from fellow bubble teams SMU and Virginia Tech — the latter of which faces off against Duke on Saturday night in the ACC Championship — the Aggies could enter the field.
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) March 12, 2022
The Aggies may require some help if they can’t finish the job against the Volunteers, but an incredible run over the last month has this team on the cusp of the big dance.
Madness, indeed.
