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After a 1-1 home stand this past week, the Huskies find themselves needing wins to remain in contention for an NCAA Tournament spot. Notwithstanding winning the conference tournament, the Huskies realistically will need at least 2 of the next 3 games for a shot at March Madness.
After losing a close game to Cal and then getting a much-needed win against Stanford to end a 4-game skid, the Huskies have fallen off the bubble and are now in a line to get back into the tournament.
The Huskies’ RPI has fallen to 72 and 9th in the Pac 12. The Dawgs have a chance to improve on their RPI with this week’s road trip to Oregon. They face OSU (33) on Wednesday and the Ducks (4) on Sunday night. Either win (and of course both) would greatly improve their tournament résumé.
According to Joe Lunardi’s latest projections, the Huskies are now the "Next Four Out" as it appears the home loss to Cal stung the Dawgs. Notably, Oregon State is also one of the "Next Four Out."
SB Nation does not have the Huskies in the First Eight Out, and ranks them as the 79th team to make the tournament. Notably, they are one spot behind St. Mary’s, the WCC leader which has beaten Gonzaga twice this year.
USA Today has the Huskies in the "First Four Out." Notably, USA Today has Oregon State, the Dawgs' opponent Wednesday, in as a 9-seed.
Jerry Palm of CBS Sportsline has the Huskies as one of the first four out of the tournament. Palm adds this word of caution about the Huskies’ hopes: "At just 11-11 against the top 200 teams in the RPI, there isn't much room for error."
It appears that UW and OSU will be vying for one of the last tickets to the big dance. Despite 6-8 in the conference, the Beavers have a higher RPI and 6 wins against top 50 RPI schools, versus 3 by the Huskies. The Dawgs can get two more wins against top 50 RPI teams if they sweep the Oregon schools, but that will be a tough task.
It now looks like the Huskies will need all 3 wins left on their conference schedule to be somewhat comfortable heading to Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament. Two wins will get them back on the bubble. 1-2 or 0-3 and we’ll need a Pac-12 tournament title to make it to the tournament.