March Madness 2019: Tournament Schedule and Bracket Predictions for Bubble Teams

Save perhaps for a gum-chewing convention, the word "bubble" isn't vocalized more at any point than it is around the NCAA tournament.

Who's on the bubble? Who's bubble-adjacent? Whose bubble has burst?             

It all relates to who's in—and out—of the Big Dance. With 36 at-large bids up for grabs between now and Selection Sunday, #BubbleWatch is about to become a nightly habit of the college hoops crowd.

Let's get a head start, then, and predict which will be the final four teams into the tournament after laying out the pertinent scheduling information.

March Madness 2019 Schedule

Selection Sunday: March 17

First Four: March 19, 20

First Round: March 21, 22

Second Round: March 23, 24

Sweet 16: March 28, 29

Elite 8: March 30, 31

Final Four: April 6

National Championship: April 8

Last Four In

Arizona State

Good luck making sense of the Sun Devils schedule.

Arizona State knocked off a pair of Top 15 teams before the calendar flipped, first beating then-15th-ranked Mississippi State in mid-November before upsetting then-No. 1 Kansas in late December. The Sun Devils also knocked off both Utah State and Washington, plus dropped a nail-biter to a good Nevada team.

But losing at home to Princeton is a bad look. And how can Arizona State explain getting run off its own court by 21 points against a bad Washington State team? Even the 11-6 conference record is shaky in a down year for the Pac-12.

The Sun Devils can't afford another slip-up. But if they take care of Arizona on Saturday, they would finish the regular season with five wins over their final six outings, which should be the right kind of momentum burst to carry them into the conference tourney and, ultimately, March Madness.

Oklahoma

The streak is over. The Sooners' 81-68 win over the Kansas Jayhawks on Tuesday means the latter's regular-season title streak will stop at 14.

What's more important for Oklahoma, though, is the addition of a desperately needed signature victory. Prior to Tuesday, the team's biggest win might have been a mid-November triumph over Wofford.

Despite nearly playing their way off the bubble with a five-game conference losing streak, the Sooners have now won four of their last five. That's obviously highlighted by the Kansas win, but it also includes victories over fellow bubble teams in TCU and Texas.

The Sooners shouldn't be breathing easy yet. But if they can pick up one more victory—either in Saturday's finale at Kansas State or in the Big 12 Tournament—they'll probably punch their ticket to the Big Dance.

Minnesota

Tuesday was a great night to be on the bubble.

Like the Sooners, the Golden Gophers scored their own resume-boosting home win over a Top 15 opponent. Behind a career-high-matching 32 points from Amir Coffey, Minnesota secured a critical 73-69 win over No. 11 Purdue.

The Gophers should savor their moment, but they must also realize their work may not be done. After all, they're still bogged down by losses to Boston College, Rutgers and Illinois, and Purdue joins Wisconsin as Minnesota's only two high-quality wins.

If the Gophers can beat Maryland on Friday or extend their stay in the conference tournament, they're probably safe. But doing so won't be easy as their season-long struggles from beyond the arc limit their margin for error on offense.

Temple

You might think the Owls' 21-8 record would give a bigger cushion between them and the bubble, but you'd be wrong.

Temple's quality wins start with a January victory over then-undefeated Houston and end with...well, that same triumph over the Cougars. The Owls' list of bad losses, meanwhile, includes stumbles against Tulsa and Penn.

If Temple is hoping for help from the analytics crowd, we've got bad news. The NET rating puts it 57th, while KenPom places it all the way down at 75.

The Owls finish with a road game at UConn on Thursday, then a home tilt with UCF on Sunday. Winning one is an absolute must, and it might take two to survive the final cut.