There is good news and bad news for teams on the bubble.\u00a0 The bad news is that as of Friday, there are very few bubble teams who are still playing.\u00a0 The Big 10 and SEC have a few since they are starting their quarterfinals today.\u00a0 And a conference like the Pac 12 has Arizona State and Oregon since only UCLA and Arizona were considered locks to be in the field.\u00a0 But for the most part, the top seeds of the major conference tournaments held form – and most of those tops seeds are locks.\u00a0 The good news is that with the top seeds winning, there are likely not going to be a lot of bid stealers.<\/p>\n
Just because the bubble teams are disappearing doesn’t mean that there isn’t great basketball.\u00a0 Quite the contrary – you will see some amazing matchups in the next couple of days.\u00a0 For those major conferences that made it to their championships – I will tell you when they play.\u00a0 For those starting, I will just pick a couple of games – most likely bubble games.<\/p>\n
BIG 12<\/strong> – No real bubble teams here.\u00a0 Iowa State technically isn’t ranked but they also have 7 victories against “Locked” teams in the field – they are in.<\/p>\n 7 pm – #3 Kansas plays Iowa State without their head coach as they try to establish one of the 4 top seeds in the tournament.<\/p>\n 9:30 pm – #7 Texas plays #22 TCU as the Horned Frogs try to come back from injuries to take the Big 12 tournament.<\/p>\n BIG EAST –\u00a0<\/strong>The four ranked teams in the conference advanced.<\/p>\n 6:30 pm – #6 Marquette plays #11 Connecticut – Marquette might have a back door chance at getting to the top line if Kansas, Alabama, UCLA, Houston and Purdue all lose.\u00a0 UConn will certainly be a great battle.<\/p>\n 9 pm – #15 Xavier vs #24 Creighton – should also be another fantastic game of ranked teams<\/p>\n PAC 12<\/strong> – Bubble drama still might exist here but everyone is hoping for a rematch of the top two teams<\/p>\n 9 pm – #2 UCLA plays Oregon – the Bruins probably get a top seed if they claim the Pac 12 title, especially if it is by beating Arizona again.<\/p>\n 11:30 pm – #8 Arizona plays Arizona State – can Arizona get revenge on that buzzer beater from a few weeks ago that put Arizona State on the bubble.<\/p>\n ACC –\u00a0<\/strong>Top 4 seeds held<\/p>\n 7 pm – #14 Miami vs #21 Duke – the Blue Devils are playing great ball as of late.\u00a0 The Hurricanes are the co-champs in the ACC – should be a great game.<\/p>\n 9:30 pm – #13 Virginia vs Clemson – the Tigers shouldn’t probably be a bubble team – getting a victory vs. the local favorite Cavaliers should be enough to get them dancing.<\/p>\n MOUNTAIN WEST<\/strong> – Don’t count this non-power conference out.\u00a0 Three of the four remaining teams are certainly in the conversation for the tournament.<\/p>\n 9:30 pm – #20 San Diego State plays San Jose State.\u00a0 The Aztecs are safely in, but they can do the bubble a favor by knocking off one of the last remaining bid stealers in San Jose State (who at 20-12 is a dangerous team).<\/p>\n 11:59 pm – Utah State plays Boise State.\u00a0 Technically both teams are on the bubble.\u00a0 With both teams having 24+ wins, getting this one might be enough to punch their ticket to the dance (if they are not already in).<\/p>\n BIG TEN<\/strong> – Indiana and Maryland are already in, and Michigan State won’t get a lot of credit for ending Ohio State’s run at stealing the bid.\u00a0 Leaving us with:<\/p>\n Noon – #5 Purdue vs Rutgers – there is an irony that the team which knocked Purdue off the #1 spot in the polls the first two times in school history is now in their way to get a 1 seed.\u00a0 But this isn’t just about spoiling the Boilers season.\u00a0 Rutgers is clearly on the bubble and could use this game.<\/p>\n 6:30 pm – Northwestern vs Penn State – Penn State is really trying to make a last minute bubble case for themselves – beating Northwestern might be enough to do that (if they haven’t done enough already).<\/p>\n SEC –\u00a0<\/strong>Hard to pick just 2 games here.\u00a0 Tennesse and Missouri are both in, and so likely are Texas A&M and Arkansas – so lets choose the two more desperate bubble teams<\/p>\n 1 pm – #4 Alabama vs Mississippi State – the Tide will be trying to claim one of the 4 top seeds (if they win the SEC, they will claim it).\u00a0 Mississippi State could really use this one as a resume builder.<\/p>\n 9 pm – #23 Kentucky vs Vanderbilt – Both teams have been pretty hot in February as Kentucky went from possibly not being in the tournament to ranked, and Vanderbilt went from completely not even being talked about to the bubble.\u00a0 Obviously, Vanderbilt needs this one more but should be a great game.<\/p>\n Non-power conference games to watch<\/p>\n 12:30 pm – CONF USA semi-final – Florida Atlantic vs Middle Tennessee State – FAU has a NET ranking in the top 20, but not a lot of wins against power conferences.\u00a0 They really don’t want to fall early.<\/p>\n 3 pm – CONF USA semi-final – North Texas vs UAB – both teams have over 24+ wins, but are in a worse boat that FAU – in the bubble conversation but no marquee wins.<\/p>\n 1 pm – AMERICAN – #1 Houston starts their bid for a 1 seed against 16-16 East Carolina.<\/p>\n 7 pm – AMERICAN – Memphis (23-8) tries to stay on the bubble conversation by beating UCF (18-13)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh and for our local fans who noticed, only Virginia on this list.\u00a0 Don’t despair.\u00a0 VCU did win on Thursday – but because of the format of the Atlantic 10 tournament, they don’t play their semi-final against Saint Louis until Saturday!\u00a0 Go Rams!<\/p>\n We are a weekend away from the Selection Committee announcing the field – and amazing conference finals will be all over the TV for the next few days.\u00a0 It is the most wonderful time of the year!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is good news and bad news for teams on the bubble.\u00a0 The bad news is that as of Friday, there are very few bubble teams who are still playing.\u00a0 The Big 10 and SEC have a few since they are starting their quarterfinals today.\u00a0 And a conference like the Pac 12 has Arizona State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2430,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions\/2430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}