Sunday, March 15, 2015

Bubble Watch Heading Into March 15th

There were a whole lot of auto-bids handed out on Saturday. Ten of them were handed out to teams not already locked into the Field of 68: UAB, Albany, Buffalo, UC-Irvine,  Eastern Washington, Hampton, Harvard, New Mexico State, Stephen F. Austin and Wyoming. Wyoming is the most important one on that list, having stolen a bid out of the Mountain West.

With Cincinnati also moving in as a lock, we enter Selection Sunday with 50 locks. The Sun Belt still has to award an auto bid and I have eight more teams listed as "safe", which pushes us to 59 spots consumed. This means that nine spots are up for grabs on Sunday, with one potentially going to UConn if they can steal the AAC title. The rest are going to be decided by the Selection Committee.

The bubble itself, in my opinion, is 8 teams for 4 spots.

Here is how the bubble stands as we head into Selection Sunday:

Tournament locks (50 teams): 
Cincinnati, SMU, Albany, Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia, North Florida, VCU, Butler, Georgetown, Providence, Villanova, Xavier, Eastern Washington, Coastal Carolina, Maryland, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, UC-Irvine, Northeastern, UAB, Valparaiso, Harvard, Manhattan, Buffalo, Hampton, Northern Iowa, Wichita State, San Diego State, Wyoming, Robert Morris, Belmont, Arizona, Utah, Lafayette, Arkansas, Kentucky, Wofford, Stephen F. Austin, Texas Southern, North Dakota State, Gonzaga, New Mexico State

Automatic bids yet to be awarded (5, of which 1 is not projected to be won by a team currently locked into the Tournament):
AAC, A-10, Big Ten, SEC, Sun Belt

Teams that look safe (8):
Davidson, Dayton, St. John's, NC State, Iowa, Ohio State, Colorado State, Oregon

Teams definitely in the Tournament... for now (5):
Temple, Purdue, Oklahoma State, Georgia, LSU

The Bubble (8 teams for 4 bids):
Tulsa, Miami, Indiana, Texas, Boise State, UCLA, Mississippi, BYU

Best of the rest (5):
Richmond, Illinois, Old Dominion, Stanford, Texas A&M

Long shots (7):
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Louisiana Tech, Green Bay, Iona, Central Michigan, Murray State

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would take Texas, Ole Miss, Boise St, Indiana and BYU...and not take Colorado St from your safe list. If UConn wins, then I would drop Ole Miss.

I think it is very hard to argue against Texas and not also think Ohio St should miss. Those resumes are very close.

I could be wrong but I think Boise's regular season title will carry the day compared to Colorado St.