After a beatdown of the Kansas Jayhawks, BYU is surging at the right time and playing itself off the middle of the bubble and closer to safely in territory.

BYU picked up two big Quad One wins over tourney teams in its last 3 games — West Virginia and Kansas — which gives them breathing room as the regular season is nearing an end and the window for bubble teams to play themselves back in the tournament is getting smaller.

Below I give an overview of how BYU’s resume grades out and what the road ahead is.

Bracketology and Resume Overview

I don’t want to do a full dissertation of bracketology, but a little “bracketology 101” is useful to understand what the selection committee looks at. The selection committee uses seven metrics when evaluating teams, breaks each game into one of four quadrants, and considers overall strength of schedule and non-conference strength of schedule.

The seven metrics are either results-based or predictive metrics. Results based is just what it sounds like — it looks at what is on your resume and doesn’t project ahead. Predictive metrics take into account the games you have played, but also factor in things like offensive and defensive efficiency to give a ranking of how good you actually are and not just solely a factor of who you have beat and lost to.

Results Based Metrics Selection Committee Considers:

Definitions are from the NCAA’s official sites.

• KPI — KPI ranks every team’s wins and losses on a positive-to-negative scale, where the worst-possible loss receives a value of roughly around -1.0 and the best-possible win receives a value of roughly 1.0. KPI then averages these scores across a season to give a score to a team’s winning percentage. The formula uses opponent’s winning percentage, opponent’s strength of schedule, scoring margin, pace of game, location, and opponent’s KPI ranking.
• SOR (strength of record)
• WAB (wins above bubble) — New metric that shows how many more, or fewer, wins a team has against its schedule versus what a bubble team would expect to have against the same schedule. The WAB metric uses NET as the basis for opponent strength, with the reference “bubble team” being defined as a team ranked 45th in NET

Predictive Metrics:

• KenPom
• BPI (Basketball Power Index)
• Torvik

Results-Based and Predictive

• NET — The primary sorting tool for the Committee. Although the actual NET ranking is a data point, the primary purpose of NET is to sort teams into Quadrants in order to measure the quality of a win and loss.

The committee will look at a “team sheet” which includes the above metrics, SOS, and Quadrant results that looks similar to below.

BYU Resume

Below are BYU’s metrics and Quad results, which you can see on the sheet above.

• KPI: 54
• SOR: 38
• WAB: 42
• BPI: 26
• KenPom: 31
• Torvik: 19
• NET SOS: 56
• NET Non-Conference SOS: 294
• Quad 1 Record: 4-7
• Quad 2 Record: 3-1
• Quad 3 Record: 5-0
• Quad 4 Record: 6-0

BYU Resume Strengths

Two strengths of BYU’s resume are the predictive metrics and lack of bad losses. Bad losses are most simply classified as Q3/Q4 losses, of which BYU has zero. BYU has zero Q3/Q4 games remaining on the schedule.

The predictive metrics are higher on BYU than the results-based metrics, which suggests that BYU is a better team than its results would indicate. These work in BYU favor and clearly represent a team that is worthy of a tournament bid.

BYU Resume Weaknesses

The #1 thing that sticks out is the putrid non-conference SOS. Out of 364 D1 teams, BYU’s is 294. This is actually right in line with last year’s non-conference SOS, which was 293. Last year’s team, however, had a Q1 win over San Diego State and Q2 win over NC State. BYU has zero Q1/Q2 wins this season in non-conference.

Another thing missing from BYU’s resume are those high-end, Q1A type wins. BYU has four Q1 wins, which is solid, but is 0-4 in Q1A wins. Not all Q1 wins are created equal and the committee will favor a road win at Iowa State more than a road win at UCF, which are both considered Quad 1 games. A Q1A game is unofficially considered a game versus a top 15 NET team at home, top 25 team on a neutral floor, and top 40 on the road. Games at Arizona and Iowa State are BYU’s two remaining Q1A games and would add some sizzle to BYU’s resume.

BYU Overall Resume

BYU’s overall resume is solid and is indicative of a team that is in the tournament and probably avoids a play-in game, but isn’t safely in the field quite yet. Four Quad ones is good and no bad losses may separate BYU from other bubble teams if BYU finds itself in that situation, but the non-conference schedule is a knock and this team could really use one of those Q1A wins to punch their ticket to the dance and get into a spot where they are going for a single-digit seed and not worrying about whether they are in the field or not.

The Road Ahead — What does BYU need to do to make the tournament?

According to Bracket Matrix — which compiles 104 different bracketology projections from pundits — BYU is included in 101 of 104 brackets. Many of these haven’t yet updated to include BYU’s win over Kansas.

BYU has 5 games remaining, three of which are Quad 1 and the two others Quad 2. I expect BYU to be favored in both Quad 2 home games (West Virginia), favored in the Quad 1 road game at Arizona State, and underdogs on the road at Iowa State and Arizona.

A 2-3 record down the stretch should be enough to get BYU in the tournament. If BYU were to only beat Utah and West Virginia, that would be two solid Quad 2 wins and three Quad 1 losses, that while not ideal, is not fatal. 1-4 may be enough for BYU to squeak in, but they would be sweating on Selection Sunday may need a win in the conference tournament to get in.

3-2 or better gives BYU a good chance to not only get in the tournament, but to avoid the first four games in Dayton. 3-2 would mean at least one Quad 1 win, with the most likely being a road game at Arizona State in which BYU should be favored.

A 4-1 record gets BYU in the single-digit seed conversation. A 4-1 record would mean at least one win on the road at Iowa State or Arizona, which would check off a big box of getting one of those top tier, Q1A wins that BYU is lacking. A 4-1 finish and at least one win in the Big 12 tournament would likely mean BYU is a 4 or 5 seed in the Big 12 tournament and could get BYU knocking on the door of a 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which could give BYU a more favorable first/second round location such as Denver.

To summarize, if the season ended today BYU would very likely be in the Tournament. With the win over Kansas BYU has a bit of breathing room, but a solid finish down the stretch could get BYU to avoid the play-in game in Dayton and instead begin their NCAA Tournament Thursday, March 20.