Morning News: Tournament Previews, Joel Embiid, More Auto Bids

It turned out that Delaware was more Charles II than James II.

Conference Tournament Previews: AAC, ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC Here we go. The big boys. I preview all seven of these conference tournaments, including favorites, sleepers, and at-large bid implications. Remember, the complete calendar of conference tournaments with previews for all 31 conference tournaments can be found here.

Bubble Watch Not a whole lot of action last night. Three more auto bids were handed out, raising the number of locked bids to 31. By the end of tonight, a full majority of the 68 NCAA Tournament bids will be gone.

Joel Embiid Out For Big 12 Tournament And likely much longer. Joel Embiid's back problems will have him out of the Big 12 tournament and likely for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament as well. History says that guys with injuries like this tend to miss the entire NCAA Tournament, even if Kansas makes it to the second weekend, so this is certainly a blow to the national title hopes for the Jayhawks.

More Auto Bids Handed Out Congratulations to Delaware, Manhattan and Wofford for locking up auto bids yesterday. The only results that impacted the bubble were in the WCC, where Gonzaga easily dispatched St. Mary's with yet another dominant defensive performance (the 7th time in 20 WCC games this season that they've held an opponent below 0.90 PPP). Gonzaga now looks safe for the NCAA Tournament, even if they lose to BYU in the title game tonight. As BYU is still on the bubble, you can bet that other bubble teams will be rooting for the Zags.