What is with all the bubble home teams blowing huge leads this weekend? Syracuse, St. Joe’s, and Maryland all blew second half leads which could have greatly improved their chances. Now, all three face must-win games to end the regular season.
Clemson, Miss State, and Pitt moved into the tourney with road wins against fellow bubble teams, while Ohio State, Kent State, Texas A&M, Houston, and the three teams mentioned above all took major losses.
Conference tournaments start on Tuesday and you can bet those teams unsure of their futures will be rooting for all the No. 1 seeds to advance.
Also, congratulations to Ivy League champion Cornell Big Red—the first team to secure a spot in the 2008 NCAA Tournament.
31 conference winners will receive automatic bids, and 34 At-Large berths are also available. 20 conferences will send one team, while 11 may send multiple teams. Following, you'll find the breakdown of those conferences.
A10
Locks 1: Xavier
Bubble 3: UMASS, Dayton, St. Joe’s
UMASS and Dayton both picked up the road wins they needed in order to stay on the bubble. St. Joe’s suffered their second consecutive home loss and now to secure a legitimate claim they must beat X on Thursday and win at Dayton.
ACC
Locks 3: Duke, North Carolina, Clemson
Bubble 3: Miami, Virginia Tech, Maryland
Clemson’s comeback at Maryland put the Tigers safely in the field. Maryland now faces a must win at Virginia to end the season. VT has won three straight and needs to take care of business this week against Wake to stay in the hunt.
Big East
Locks 6: UCONN, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Louisville, Pitt
Bubble 3: West Virginia, Villanova, Syracuse
Syracuse's home collapse basically summed up their season, and an NIT berth barring a monster run in the BE tournament. Seton Hall is also NIT bound after their choke-job at St. John's. WVU still can’t win away from Morgantown, and Nova needs to finish strong to have a chance.
Big 10
Locks 4: Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana, Michigan State
Bubble 0:
OSU is done, losing to Minnesota by double digits. The Big Ten sends four.
Big 12
Locks 2: Kansas, Texas
Bubble 4: Baylor, Oklahoma, Kansas State, Texas A&M
Baylor and Oklahoma both won, improving their status.
Kansas State has now lost four straight and needs to win both remaining regular season games to stay in contention. A&M is extremely inconsistent, but could turn it around with wins at Baylor and at UMASS to end the season.
Conference USA
Locks 1: Memphis
Bubble 2: UAB, Houston
UAB won, keeping them square on the bubble.
Houston lost to a horrible East Carolina team. Come Selection Sunday, they will most likely stand outside looking in.
Missouri Valley
Locks 1: Drake
Bubble 3: Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Creighton
1 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Anonymous about 1 year ago
What's it take for UK to get a little respect? Seriously! No SEC team has ever won 10 conference games and not made it to the tourny...and UK has now won 11. Come on. Use some common sense here.
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