NCAA Tournament March Madness Bubble Watch: Pepperdine

NCAA Tournament March Madness

#286 Pepperdine

Bubble Watch | Bracketology

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

Pepperdine’s résumé is built around a lone meaningful victory over New Orleans and a handful of competitive efforts, including a tight game with SF Austin and a road outing at UCLA that showed they can hang with bigger programs, but those bright spots are eclipsed by damaging losses such as the neutral-site drubbing at Fresno State and the road setback at Cal State Fullerton which leave the resume thin on quality wins away from Malibu. The Waves have struggled to prove themselves on the road or on neutral floors against strong opposition, and that lack of road or neutral victories against recognized opponents is the principal reason their profile looks vulnerable. They still have clear opportunities to change the narrative — a home date with Gonzaga, trips to St Mary’s and Santa Clara, plus contests at Washington State and San Diego and a home chance against San Francisco — and a couple of statement results in those spots would markedly improve how the committee views them while more slip-ups would cement the damage from earlier defeats.

Date	Opponent	Ranking	Outcome
11/7	@UCLA	33	L74-63
11/15	N Colorado	153	L88-81
11/18	New Orleans	193	W90-79
11/21	SF Austin	146	L63-60
11/26	(N)Fresno St	160	L76-53
11/29	@CS Fullerton	287	L83-69
12/2	Abilene Chr	237	L71-63
12/6	Vermont	209	47%
12/13	@CS Bakersfield	289	39%
12/18	@Long Beach St	270	36%
12/20	Rice	217	49%
12/28	Gonzaga	3	1%
12/30	St Mary's CA	35	7%
1/2	@Santa Clara	49	3%
1/4	@Pacific	130	13%
1/8	@San Diego	269	36%
1/10	San Francisco	105	22%
1/14	Portland	246	55%
1/21	@Gonzaga	3	0%
1/24	@Washington St	165	20%
1/28	San Diego	269	58%
2/4	@Seattle	111	10%
2/7	Pacific	130	29%
2/11	@St Mary's CA	35	2%
2/14	Loy Marymount	143	32%
2/18	@Portland	246	33%
2/21	@Oregon St	178	22%
2/25	Seattle	111	23%
2/28	Washington St	165	39%