Stanford's March Madness Hopes are Increasing

Stanford basketball has had an interesting start to the season. After a successful preseason slate that included beating San Francisco and Oregon, the Cardinal began the season with four straight wins over Portland State, Montana, Montana State and Louisiana to start 4-0. But that’s when things got interesting.

Stanford lost in embarrassing fashion to Seattle, which made it seem as if the Cardinal's March Madness hopes were going down the drain in November.

That’s until an immensely successful Acrisure Series gave the Cardinal tons of life, as wins over Minnesota and Saint Louis proved to be massive for the program. The Cardinal then played Portland on Monday, where they won convincingly by 22. It was another step in the right direction.

Stanford currently sits at a 7-1 record and is ranked 85th in NET rankings. They have gone 1-0 in Quad 1, haven't played a Quad 2 game, have gone 3-1 in Quad 3 and 3-0 in Quad 4. It's a solid resume, but they are going to need to be solid in conference play to have a chance at the tournament.

While Stanford's non-conference schedule isn't necessarily too tough, the Cardinal have done a good job at getting wins when needed. The domination of Montana, and the close wins against St. Louis and Minnesota will be huge.

But with that loss to Seattle and an overall easier non-conference slate, Stanford is going to have to be borderline great against the ACC in order to qualify for the March Madness.

Last season, the Cardinal finished seventh in the conference, but missed out on the tournament due to a scarcity of bids in the conference. The only teams to make it were Duke, Clemson, Louisville, and North Carolina. This year though, it looks like the conference could get seven or even eight bids to the tournament.

Stanford is going to need to have a similar year to last year in the sense that they'll need to be at least .500 in conference play to reach their goals. When looking for a couple of games that could be seen as resume-builders for the season, these ones stood out as ones to circle on the calendar.

They have home games against Georgia Tech, Pitt, Cal, Clemson, Notre Dame, and SMU that all should be wins for the Cardinal. They also have away games against Florida State and Boston College, that potentially should be wins as well.

That's not to mention that Stanford has massive home games against Duke, Louisville, and North Carolina, where the Cardinal could potentially sneak out another win against some tough opposition.

It looks like the Cardinal will have to be somewhere around 22-9 to be a March Madness level team. It's very possible, but Stanford is going to have to be great in conference play, and get some big wins, especially at home.

Stanford's next game is on Sunday against UNLV in a pivotal non-conference test, which can further the Cardinal's success this season, and potentially have them playing deep into March.