latest bubble watch

Andy Glockner
ESPN.com
It's Championship Week. There's no reason to dawdle. Let's get straight to the updated look at the at-large picture.

Here are the teams that are "locks" or "should be in"s from the six biggest conferences:

ACC: Duke, North Carolina, Clemson, Miami
Big East: Georgetown, UConn, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pitt, Marquette, West Virginia
Big Ten: Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan State
Big 12: Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas State, Baylor
Pac-10: UCLA, Stanford, Washington State, USC
SEC: Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State
Assuming there are no surprise auto-bid winners from these leagues, that means 21 of the 34 at-larges are accounted for, leaving 13 up for grabs.

Next, there are the leagues that are in very good shape to get two teams in:

WCC: Gonzaga, Saint Mary's
Missouri Valley: Drake, Illinois State
Mountain West: BYU and right now UNLV
That would leave 10 at-larges. That could drop, though, if any of the following teams don't win their conference tournament:

C-USA: Memphis (lock)
Horizon: Butler (lock)
Sun Belt: South Alabama (should be in)
MAC: Kent State (should be in)
A-10: Xavier (lock)
CAA: VCU (bubble candidate)
SoCon: Davidson (bubble candidate)
The most likely scenario right now is that there are seven or eight bids remaining, assuming two or three of those teams won't win their respective conference tourneys.

From the remaining teams, Arizona, Arizona State, UMass, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Kentucky look to be best-positioned right now, but most of those teams face extremely important quarterfinal games in their conference tourneys, so that picture could change in a hurry.

If all of those teams do hang on to their current position, that leaves a maximum of four bids (and more likely just one or two) for the following group (in alphabetical order): Dayton, Florida, Houston, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio State, Oregon, Saint Joe's, Syracuse, Temple, UAB, Villanova, Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky, and possibly Davidson and VCU.

As always, the records listed are Division I only, per NCAA Tournament selection guidelines. If you have a legitimate grievance or just like talking bubble, send an e-mail to [email protected].

One more bit of good news: Bubble Watch is now daily, so every day from now through Selection Sunday, you'll get a fresh look at the at-large picture.

Should be in:
Miami (FL) [20-8 (8-7), RPI: 23, SOS: 27] That was a disappointing overtime loss at Florida State on Saturday, but the Canes still look to be in pretty good shape. If they can avoid a loss in their first ACC tourney game, they should be safely into the field. Miami had a few credible wins in nonconference play, including victories over Mississippi State and VCU, which is more than a number of other bubble teams have to offer, so the .500 record in ACC play should be enough barring unforseen developments.

I do not see Maryland making it. Maybe that loss at UVa sealed their fate. Will be close for VT also. Anything can happen in the tourny though. MD may get hot and win the ACC tourny. Should be interesting.
Of course Miami will get in. Had a pretty good season overall. Maybe a 6,7, 8 seed

canes are using the ACCT for seeding purposes at this point

i think md and vt need at least 1.......probably 2 tourney wins to get in