UCLA has been stuck as a sub-100 NET team all season long, but recently they have gone on a run and are only 1/2 game out of 1st place in the Pac-12. They are starting to pop-up in a very small handful of bracket projections with others putting them as "first 4 out" or "next 4 out". My first instinct with this was that it's ridiculous given their NET rating is only 76 and other metrics aren't that favorable either. However, when looking closer and comparing to what the committee did last year it's possible it just could happen - though I don't think they're quite there yet.

Last season the final team included as an at-large in the NCAA tournament was St. John's who had a pretty solid record of 21-13 but NET rating of only 75. They were the lowest-rated team in NET to get an at-large bid by quite a bit. Why did they get a bid? They were 5-6 vs Q1 teams and 5-4 vs Q2 teams giving them 10 Q1/Q2 wins. They did have 3 Q3 losses which hurt their resume, but the sheer number of Q1/Q2 wins overcame that for them. Their KPI (which is 1 measure of "resume strength) was actually pretty good at 40 and their Strength of Record" was 58 which is at least enough to merit consideration. When all was said and done they go the final at-large bid.

This season UCLA's NET is 76 which is right about what St. John's NET was last year. SOS is very similar as well. Current record is 16-11 which is a hair worse but still have 4+ games left to improve on that. The biggest strength of their resume is being 5-5 vs Q1, though they are only 2-4 vs Q2. They only have 1 Q3 loss but they also have a Q4 loss which is pretty killer. KPI and SOR aren't quite as high as St. John's at 56 and 67 respectively, but they aren't THAT far off from where they'd need to be.

After looking at all of that, UCLA clearly still isn't there yet in terms of getting an at-large bid, but they aren't nearly as far off as I was initially thinking. They probably need to win at least 2 of their final 3 games and may even need to win 1 or 2 games in their conference tournament (depending on how the other bubble teams fare), but they do have a very real shot at making it to the Big Dance. I wouldn't have thought that even possible just a few weeks ago.