Last night was very interesting when it comes to who is still left standing on the bubble. While some of the early conference tournament losses definitely hurt some teams chances of making the NCAA Tournament, none of the teams that I previously had on my list are definitively out as of yet.
To recap: on Wednesday, I broke down the 68 tournament bids that are awarded for the Big Dance this year. 31 of these bids are automatic qualifiers for winning your conference tournament. That leaves 37 at large bids for the power conferences and mid-majors to fight over. Of those, I said that 27 of these bids were already locked up by teams and about 20 teams were fighting over the final 10 spots.
I based those 10 spots with the assumption that a team will win every conference tournament that is already a lock for the NCAA tournament. If that doesn't happen, an At Large bid will no longer be available.
Based upon what I saw yesterday, here is what I can add to this:
Big East
- Connecticut has secured a spot into the tournament with 2 Big Easy tournament wins and a narrow 3 point loss to soon to be #1 seed Syracuse.- I still have West Virginia in the tournament even with the loss Wednesday against Uconn.
- An overtime loss for South Florida against Notre Dame may be enough for the Big East to get 9 teams in the tournament.
- But not enough to get 10 teams in ... Sorry Seton Hall.
Big Ten
Northwestern really needed to not lose their first round matchup against Minnesota. A win wasn't necessarily going to put them in, but if they beat Michigan next they would have their first ticket to the dance in a long time. Depending on how things go from here, the Wildcats may not be out of the tournament yet; but they are on life support.Big 12
Texas did what Northwestern need to do. They beat Iowa State in their first tournament game. If they beat Missouri, the Longhorns will definitely be in. If not, they will still have to wait for Selection Sunday.Mountain West Conference
This tournament has held true to form with all 4 top seed advancing. The top 3 (San Diego St, UNLV and New Mexico) are all guaranteed to be in the NCAA Tournament. Colorado State can wrap up a bid if they win their semi-final matchup with SDSU.Pac-12
When you go into Championship Week labeled as a weak conference, the last thing you want to do is prove everyone right.The #1 seed Washington might have doused their chance of receiving an At-Large bid by losing to #9 Oregon State. Not only did they lose, but they didn't show up in the first half and were down 15 to start the second half. Then, they made a run to go up by 8 only to lose in dramatic fashion. Oregon didn't do itself any favors either, losing a dramatic game after coming back from an 8 point deficit.
California didn't show up in the first half either, but had an impressive 2nd half and won against their rivals Stanford. Arizona also won against the beleaguered UCLA Bruins. These two teams currently have the best shot of receiving an At Large bid. Oregon State and Colorado would need to win the Pac-12 tournament to get in.
SEC
Mississippi State has got a problem on their hands. In the last month, they went from 19-5 to 21-11. They need to beat the sub .500 11th seeded Georgia Bulldogs in the first round of the SEC tournament. Instead, they lost by 10 which puts them squarely on the hot seat for Selection Sunday.The Rest
The 2nd rounds of the ACC and A-10 tournaments do not take place until today. We shall see how Miami and NC State fare in their tournament games. Xavier and Dayton play in what should be an elimination game for an At-Large bid, the loser not being invited.Please check out my 2012 March Madness Contest page at my website. I am in the process of updating everything for this year's contests. I will be posting a bracket and predictions after the final selections are made and the 2012 NCAA tournament brackets are released.
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