The madness is already here.
We’re a now a week deep into conference tournament play and four official NCAA Tournament bids have already been clinched (hearty congrats are in order for Morehead State, Longwood, Drake, and especially Stetson, who will be going dancing for the first time ever), with two more (Sun Belt, SoCon) to be decided today.
Though sweeping changes are no longer to be made this late into the season, we do see a couple new faces enter the field: Montana (projected automatic bid after Big Sky #1 and #2 seeds Eastern Washington and Northern Colorado went down last night, yowza), Toledo (MAC regular season champs and new projected auto-bid), Merrimack (now one game away from their first March Madness bid ever—good luck!), James Madison (projected Sun Belt auto-bid after Appalachian State lost yesterday, and a game away from removing the headache of them potentially being an at-large option with a conference tourney loss), and, perhaps most controversially, New Mexico, who I’ve decided to give the final at-large bid after a long side-by-side comparison with my first team out, St. John’s. Even with SOR’s baked-in hatred of Mountain West and high-elevation teams, the Lobos still have a better résumé metric average and five wins (San Diego State, Utah State, Colorado State, Nevada twice) against fellow current at-large teams to St. John’s one (Creighton)—though it is extremely close for that last spot between UNM, SJU, and even suddenly surging Texas A&M, so there’s still plenty to work out over this final week of conference tournament play.
We’re getting near the end, guys! Less than one week until Selection Sunday, and many more bids will be clinched over these coming days. Expect a new Bauer’s Bubble Watch tomorrow, then scattered bracket and Bubble Watch content over the final few days, with, of course, a final bracket on Sunday itself. Enjoy these days while they last!
BAUERTOLOGY 