Does St. Joe’s have a path to an at-large NCAA bid? Here’s what ESPN’s Joe Lunardi thinks.

The latest update to Joe Lunardi’s ESPN Bracketology on Tuesday morning had St. Joseph’s 13 spots out of the NCAA Tournament.

That the previous sentence was true on Jan. 2 is a big development. There were signs that the Hawks were turning the corner last year, the fourth in Billy Lange’s tenure, but now? In the conversation for the NCAA Tournament?

Not even Lunardi — who attended St. Joe’s and has worked for the university — could have predicted that.

The Hawks finished their nonconference schedule with a blowout win over Loyola (Md.) on Friday night at Hagan Arena. Their path to 10-3 featured a historic win over Villanova, a Big 5 Classic championship, a near-victory over now-No. 6 Kentucky on the road, a home victory vs. Princeton, and a home loss to Texas A&M-Commerce.

More ups than downs, to be sure.

About a month ago, getting to the NCAA Tournament for St. Joe’s meant winning the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament in March. Now there seems to be a path to an at-large bid.

How realistic? We talked with Lunardi to get a sense of where things stand.

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It was a classic trap as far as trap games go. The Hawks rolled in their first three games of the season, and only a sleepy home game the Friday night before Thanksgiving vs. a low-level Division I team stood between them and a trip to Kentucky.

St. Joe’s had an ugly shooting night and lost, 57-54.

We don’t get to erase results, but, hypothetically, what would eliminating that data point do to the Hawks’ place in the conversation?

“At the end of the year, if you think about it, it’s like a 30-slice pizza,” Lunardi said. “Well, you’re only going to get 29 slices if you take one out. That’s still a lot of pizza.”

There’s no such thing as bad pizza, but is this pizza good enough, for what we’re talking about?

The loss, Lunardi said, is currently costing St. Joe’s about four to six spots in the pecking order. So, pretty big. And it could be really big on Selection Sunday.

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How do you counteract bad losses?

“Really big wins usually help you more than bad losses hurt you, as long as you have enough of those good wins to counteract,” Lunardi said.

To that end, St. Joe’s has two big wins right now, one at Villanova and one at home against Princeton. Those are the only two Quadrant 1 wins the Hawks own.

There could have easily been a third. St. Joe’s was a free throw and a quick defensive stop away from beating Kentucky on the road. Instead, the Hawks lost by eight in overtime.

If it comes down to it at bubble time, the details of that loss, and how it easily could have been a win, could matter. For now? It’s a big part of the reason St. Joe’s would be on the outside looking in if the tournament began tomorrow.

Put that Kentucky game in the win column and take out that Commerce slice of pizza, and St. Joe’s is squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

Still, it’s not just those games factoring into the math, Lunardi said.

“At this moment, what would be keeping them further from them being really close isn’t those games, it’s that seven of their 10 wins are Quad 4 and there’s no getting around that,” Lunardi said.

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The good thing for St. Joe’s and its fans is that the NCAA Tournament does not start tomorrow.

The Hawks open their 18-game A-10 slate Wednesday night at Rhode Island.

Entering Tuesday night’s games, the conference had eight teams in the top 100 of the NCAA’s NET rankings. St. Joe’s was ranked 54th.

As far as potential Quad 1 opportunities go, there are a few games to circle on the calendar as critical for the Hawks’ at-large chances.

Quadrant 1 games are home games against the top 30 of NET, neutral-site games against the top 50, and road games against the top 75. NET is the NCAA evaluation tool.

Speaking of Quad 1, there’s a possibility that the Princeton win on Dec. 10 gets knocked into the category of Quad 2.

“I think the single most important thing for a St. Joe’s fan, other than rooting for their team, is to root for Princeton to stay in the top 30 so that stays in Quad 1,” Lunardi said. “Villanova is going to stay in Quad 1. Whatever ailed them is in the past.”

Why is that so critical?

“The average number of Quad 1 wins, for a nonpower at-large in the NET era, is a little under 3,” Lunardi said.

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The other problem, in addition to getting more Quad 1 action, is that St. Joe’s has a bunch of 50-50 games left on its calendar.

KenPom’s predictive analytics show seven games left on the Hawks’ schedule with score predictions falling in the three-point win/loss range. A lot has to go right to win so many coin flips.

The good news is St. Joe’s won’t be a big underdog in any game it plays the rest of the way, and there are plenty of “easy” ones on the calendar, too.

How many conference wins would seal the deal? There’s no perfect number, because it will all depend on the makeup of the wins (unless, of course, the Hawks run the table).

Lunardi says: “14-4 puts them right there.”

Right there means in the mix.

It’s a better A-10 than it was last season, and going 14-4 is a challenge.

As conference play begins, though, Lunardi has St. Joe’s at 20-25% to make the NCAA Tournament. Certainly a live underdog.

There are a lot of ways this could all go. But after all the math works itself out, it could simply still come down to running the table in Brooklyn.