Three more teams locked their way into the NCAA Tournament by winning on Friday: Memphis, UCLA and VCU. That pushes us up to 42 locks, and 26 spots will left open. Of course, we have 17 automatic bids to hand out (though only 9 of those are currently projected to "one bid leagues"). 13 of those 17 are coming up on Saturday, so we have an awfully full of day of action. By the end of the day on Saturday, I expect to have at least 55 locks, with possibly fewer than 10 spots not assured.
As opposed to my bracket projection, where I had to make a decision between the impossible bubble teams like Virginia, Kentucky and Iowa, I get to punt that decision with my bubble watch. They're all on the bubble folks. And while fans of those teams and others want specific answers from people like Joe Lunardi, the reality is that they do not exist. It will come down to the subjective judgments and arguments in the Selection Committee itself. Nobody can projrect that for certain.
Right now I have 12 teams on the bubble fighting for 8 spots. I would expect that bubble to shrink a little bit on Saturday. The bubble on Selection Sunday is usually only for the last 5 or 6 spots.
There's so much action happening on Saturday that I could write a few thousand words on it. I'll spare you. You all know the important games, and keep checking this blog and my twitter feed for my thoughts on those games.
Anyway, here is how the bubble stands as we head into Saturday, March 16th:
Tournament locks (42 teams):
Duke, Miami (Fl), North Carolina, NC State, Florida Gulf Coast, Butler, St.Louis, VCU, Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame,
Pittsburgh,
Syracuse, Liberty, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State,
Wisconsin,
Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, James Madison, Memphis, Valparaiso,
Harvard, Iona, Creighton, Colorado State, New Mexico, UNLV, LIU,
Belmont, Arizona, UCLA, Bucknell, Florida,
Davidson, South Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga
Automatic bids yet to be awarded (17, of which 8 are not projected to be won by teams currently locked into the Tournament):
America
East, ACC, A-10, Big East, Big Sky, Big Ten, Big 12, Big West, CUSA, MAC, MEAC, MWC, Pac-12,
SEC, Southland, SWAC, WAC)
Teams that look safe (4):
Cincinnati, Iowa State, San Diego State, Missouri
Teams definitely in the Tournament... for now (6):
Villanova, Illinois, Minnesota, Wichita State, Colorado, Oregon
The Bubble (12 teams for 8 bids):
Virginia, La Salle, Temple, Iowa, Oklahoma, Boise State, California, Alabama, Kentucky,
Ole Miss, Tennessee, St. Mary's
Best of the rest (4):
Maryland, UMass, Baylor, Southern Miss
Long shots (5):
Akron, Arizona State, Stanford, Middle Tennessee, Louisiana Tech
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3 comments:
I get that Missouri suffered a tough loss last night, and teams that lose games generally do not suddenly become locks.But Missouri has an RPI in the low 30s and a Sagarin rating in the low 20s. There are also better wins than most bubble teams and 0 100+ losses. You know a lot more about this than I do, but is there any realistic chance, given the state of the bubble, that a team with this resume misses the tournament?
By the way, thanks for doing all the good work on this blog.
At this point I'm planning on making Missouri a Tournament lock in my next bracket projection tonight.
Thanks. I know it probably gets wearing with people only commenting when they complain about their favorite team. I don't mean to be like that. Keep up the good work.
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