I’ve been doing most of my March Madness talk on Twitter, but with less an a week till Selection Sunday, it’s high time for a bubble overview. Here’s where things stand right now, per a slightly tweaked version of Andy Glockner‘s breakdown:
LOCKS: Arizona, BYU, Cincinnati, Duke, Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Pitt, Purdue, San Diego State, St. John’s, Syracuse, Temple, Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, UConn, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Villanova, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Xavier
PROBABLY IN: Florida State, George Mason, Missouri, Old Dominion, Tennessee, Washington
BUBBLE (competing for 11 spots): Alabama, Baylor, Boston College, Butler, Clemson, Colorado, Georgia, Gonzaga/St. Mary’s loser, Illinois, Marquette, Memphis, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Richmond, UAB, USC, Utah State, Virginia Tech
PROBABLY OUT (or needing autobid): Colorado State, Harvard, Missouri State, New Mexico, VCU
Glockner has George Mason and Old Dominion as “locks,” but I’ve put them in “probably in,” since some folks don’t seem quite so sure. I still think they’re in solid shape, though — and if VCU beats Old Dominion tomorrow, you can scratch the Rams off the “probably out” list, and edit the bubble teams category to “competing for 10 spots.” Conversely, if Butler wins the Horizon title game tomorrow, that’s one less team on the bubble competing for one of those precious spots. Same if Utah State wins the WAC.
Anyway, bottom line, it’s an incredibly weak bubble, not just because of the three extra spots in the tournament, but due to weakness extending all the way up to the #7 seed line or so. Hence team likes USC and Colorado, both with a slew of incredibly awful losses, even being in the mix. The weak bubble also seems to be creating more disagreement that usual among bracketologists, so it should be an interesting week, with a lot of suspense right down to the wire.
I think what it comes down to for USC is, how much do you weight their performance in the second half of the season, when they have had Jio Fontan and a healthy Alex Stepheson, versus the first half of the year, when both missed most of the games and USC effectively didn’t have a PG. Going by Andy Staples’ experience, the answer is, the selection committee will probably not take that much into account, so USC is probably screwed unless they win the tourney. But really, they belong.