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Oklahoma State Basketball Bracketology

A weekly discussion of where the Cowboys will land in the NCAA Tournament

Will the Cowboys be dancing in March?
Will the Cowboys be dancing in March?
Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

This was a huge week for the Cowboys, as they were able to pull off quality wins against top 25 opponents.

OKLAHOMA STATE RESUME

16-7 Overall | 6-5 Big 12 (6th)

Home

Away

Neutral

SOS

SOS Rank

RPI

RPI Rank

10-2 3-5 2-0 0.5800 32 0.5897 24
Key Wins (Teams Ranked 1-50 in the RPI)

Rank

Date

Site

Opponent

Score

1 2/7 Home Kansas 67-62
11 1/27 Home Baylor 64-53
31 1/10 Home Texas 64-53
31 2/4 Road Texas 65-63 (OT)
43 1/26 Neutral Tulsa 73-58
Bad Losses (Teams Ranked 100+ in the RPI)

Rank

Date

Site

Opponent

Score

103 1/24 Away Kansas State 53-63
108 12/6 Away South Carolina 49-75

*RPI and SOS stats courtesy CBS.com

OSU began the week ranked #38 in the RPI and needing some resume building wins, particularly on the road. The Cowboys achieved just that on Wednesday against a tournament team in Texas. Yesterday the Pokes got the biggest win of the season beating top ranked KU, which helped shot them up to #24. Kansas State is not helping the cause as they have continued to slip down the rankings and are now outside the top 100 along with South Carolina.

Here's where OSU is currently slotted in some of he latest bracket projections:

Bracket Projections

Site
Seed
Region
Opponent
Site
SBN 8 East Dayton Charlotte
ESPN 8 East Seton Hall Charlotte
CBS 6 Midwest St. Johns Seattle
SI 9 West Seton Hall N/A

*All Projections as of 2/7

It appears the Cowboys are considered to be comfortably in the field after the week the just had. Most likely OSU still needs to get to 9-9 in conference to get in the Dance , which seems to be very much achievable with two games against TCU and one against Texas Tech. 10-8 is a real possibility with both games against West Virginia still ahead as well as a home game against Iowa State.

Here is where OSU falls in the latest rankings on BracketMatrix.com, which averages the seeding of 83 different bracket projections.

Bracket Matrix

Seed
Team
Conference
Average Seed
# of Brackets
7 Ohio State Big Ten 7.11 83
7 Southern Methodist American 7.23 83
7 Indiana Big Ten 7.4 83
7 San Diego State Mountain West 7.5 82
8 Cincinnati American 8.15 82
8 Texas Big 12 8.28 82
8 Georgia SEC 8.54 82
8 Oklahoma State Big 12 8.55 82
9 Dayton Atlantic 10 8.88 81
9 Stanford Pacific-12 8.93 81
9 Michigan State Big Ten 8.94 83
9 Seton Hall Big East 9.17 82

*Last Updated 2/7 at 11:13 AM

The Cowboys were listed as the last 10 seed prior to the game against Texas, so it was obvious that the win against UT held some weight. Beating KU will make the biggest impact in most projected brackets, and will without a doubt be OSU's most impressive win of the season. The last update occurred prior to the game yesterday so we won't see the effect it has on all the brackets until next week.

Key Upcoming Games

Based on current RPI rankings

2/9 Oklahoma State @ #11 Baylor

It would be nice to get at least 1 more quality road win to bolster the resume, and OSU has already shown they can handle Baylor's zone defense.

2/18 Oklahoma State vs. #16 Iowa State

If the last few seasons are any indication, this should be a closely contested game.

2/21 Oklahoma State vs. #30 West Virginia

Hopefully the Cowboys will be securely in the tournament and looking to improve their seed against a very good WVU team.