It’s the Wednesday before Selection Sunday, and that means that the final full Bauer’s Bubble Watch of 2026 is here at last. The selection committee is now convening in Indianapolis, and over the next four days and change, they will be tasked with selecting the 68 teams that will comprise the 2026 NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament, seeding them from 1 to 68, and bracketing them to create the worldwide phenomenon that we know and love called March Madness.
Once again, I will make a likely-to-be-unfulfilled promise of a short bonus Bubble Watch article sometime this weekend before the bracket is unveiled (I’m aiming for Saturday morning), if I have the time to get to it amid my busy work schedule. If I don’t, it’s been a pleasure to watch bubbles with you all over these last five weeks.
Back to the matter at hand, that being the bubble—we have empirical evidence that this is indeed the worst bubble of all time! Now you don’t just have to take my word for it. Across the past 16 seasons, the gap in quality between the teams at the top of the bracket and the team we’re scrambling to find to get to 68 somehow has never been wider. This has made Bauer’s Bubble Watch extra challenging in 2026, as I’ve had keep the door slightly ajar for résumés that would otherwise be completely discarded in seasons past. It’s how the likes of Auburn with their 16-15 record, Indiana with their 6-13 mark in Quad 1/2, or Cal with nearly their full course of metrics residing in the 50s can remain on the Bubble Watch page week after week, disappointment after disappointment.
So, what’s the solution to our bad bubble problem? Other than overhauling the sport entirely, of course. (Like that’ll happen.) I’ll tell you: Bid thieves. Bid thieves are the solution.
Part of why the bubble has become so poor as of recent is because quality mid-majors are getting frozen out of the tournament at a higher rate than ever. While I do still believe that the new NET system that factors in game margins is much more grounded in science than the RPI of old, you can’t deny the fact that some of the best mid-major stories in March during the RPI years—the 2006 George Masons, the 2011 VCUs—are getting fewer chances to shine in the big dance these days, merely because they aren’t getting the same regular-season opportunities to build tournament résumés. It all has to do with how power conference teams—a.k.a., the ones with the money—have meticulously crafted their schedules to cater to their own needs in this NET-based system that allows such behavior to thrive. (That’s how you end up with a Miami (OH) team—one that power conference opponents knew was going to be good—getting told no on 75 different occasions.)
This imbalance of power in college basketball and college sports in general is very, very troubling. But at least when it comes to March Madness, mid-majors can get the last laugh via bid thieves. Popping the bubbles of mediocre P5 teams by forcing automatic bids to mid-majors that otherwise wouldn’t have made the NCAA Tournament as an at-large is our college hoops equivalent of spitting in the face of the unequal system that we’ve set up ourselves. And lucky for us, we’ve got plenty of opportunities for bid thieves to take center stage.
No example is more stark than the Mountain West—still a very good league amid its final season in its current form, but a far cry from the conference that sent six to the dance in 2024. As it stands, Utah State is the only member likely to receive an at-large invitation. But at least half the MWC is just as capable as the Aggies when it comes to putting together a short stretch of winning basketball. Should USU stumble at any point in Paradise this week, a bid thief will emerge.
The same is true for the Atlantic 10; Saint Louis is most likely dancing no matter what, but the Billikens have been far from unbeatable the way they were during the heart of the winter. VCU, Dayton, George Mason, Saint Joseph’s, you name it—all capable of toppling SLU and essentially guaranteeing the A-10 a second bid.
And who’d’ve thunk that the MAC of all conferences would be on bid thief watch? As a result of Miami completing a perfect regular season, the RedHawks will be in March regardless of whether or not they claim the MAC tournament crown. That opens the door for another quality team (fingers crossed that it’s Akron) to win the tourney title and pop another bubble. (Tough choice, Miami: Maintain the perfect season, or get revenge on the P5 teams that spited you in the first place? Decisions, decisions.)
Though, there are also times that bid thieves can backfire. We saw that in 2024 when five emerged—two from power conferences—pushing story-of-the-season Indiana State out of the final field. (But, like, we got DJ Burns and NC State to the Final Four as a result, so we’ll call it an even trade-off.)
For the most part, though, this is how mid-majors can get back at the man. And the bubble teams we analyze below will be sweating out these final few days, keeping as watchful of an eye on the Mountain West, Atlantic 10, and MAC tournament results as much as their own.
So let’s investigate these bubble-bound baddies in full, one last time. In today’s Bauer’s Bubble Watch, we lock five more teams into total tournament certainty, with 19 others not necessarily in need of a conference auto-bid to dance still hanging around (though the amount of work to be done varies greatly).
Five more evenings to get us to the finish line. Let’s find out which bubbles will stay inflated and which will go pop Under Pressure.
ACC
Is this Bauer’s Bubble Watch, or Bauer’s ACC Watch? Seriously—a full third of the bubble (and probably a third of the words in this writeup) is comprised of the Atlantic Coast Conference. I suppose we should be celebrating this fact, as there have never been double-digit ACC teams in the at-large picture in the final edition of Bauer’s Bubble Watch, dating back to 2021. Then again… There does exist a not-super-unlikely and equally hilarious scenario in which the committee’s First Four Out is EXCLUSIVELY the ACC. Renaissance season? Perhaps… If you’re cool with a mustache being painted on the Mona Lisa, that is.
NC State: Maybe Will Wade was on to something when he said that he hoped his team could just get to Dayton. That must be the preferred destination for NC State, seeing how the Wolfpack have plummeted from the good graces of a projected 6 or 7 seed in early February, to pushing the boundaries of tournament inclusion altogether: a consequence of a 1-6 stretch in which they’ve allowed at least 85 points in 71 or fewer possessions each of the last four times out on the court. That one 82-58 thwarting of North Carolina on Feb. 17 remains baffling—a saving grace in a cesspool, essential in keeping the Pack on the upper side of the bubble, in spite of the ongoing implosion in Raleigh. What’s worse is that the Wolfpack and their 43rd-ranked WAB got no help on Tuesday in their region of the ACC tournament bracket, as a late Pittsburgh layup simultaneously snuffed out Stanford as well as NC State’s chances at revenge on the Cardinal in the form of a quasi-quality win. Now NCSU must merely play keep-away against the Panthers on Wednesday, a win affording them very little extra breathing room from the cut line, a loss opening up the possibility of doomsday. Never been more important for the Wolfpack to shake these woes than right now.
SMU: On a Tuesday where other ACC bubble teams stumbled left and right, SMU… actually won? Hell yeah, they did! And good thing too; the Mustangs’ comfortable position in the field has rapidly deteriorated over the course of this four-game losing streak—no doubt aided by the lack of B.J. Edwards in the lineup—sliding all the way down to the cut line’s edge in the majority of projections. I’m not confident that the ‘Stangs would be in the field if it were built today; every metric ranging between 39th and 47th with respective marks of 1-5, 4-8, and 5-4 in Quad 1A, Quad 1, and Quad 2 are about as bubbly as humanly possible. But I am liking SMU’s dancing odds better than any other ACC bubbler not named NC State, especially since they successfully dodged the first-round exit disaster that Virginia Tech and Stanford fell victim to. (Syracuse considered a “disaster” loss in the year of our lord… What has happened to the Orange, man?) Plenty more work to be done before SMU can feel any semblance of safety, and it begins with taking down Louisville for the second time this season in Wednesday’s second round. And, hey, freshman phenom Mikel Brown Jr. has been ruled out for the rest of the ACC tournament. Opportunities on a silver platter don’t pop up like this very often.
California: I can’t help but chuckle at the fact that the two teams that seemingly put the dagger in California’s postseason hopes—Pittsburgh, via horrendous Quad 3 home loss, and Wake Forest, via painful second-half choke—have immediately repaid the favor in full by knocking out fellow ACC bubble competitors Stanford and Virginia Tech in the conference tournament’s opening round on Tuesday. What goes around comes around! Seriously though, if the Golden Bears just hang on to their 15-point lead in Winston-Salem, or don’t fall asleep at the wheel against the Panthers in Berkeley on the final day of February, they’re probably not even considered a bubble team at this point. Gut-wrenching, when you think about it that way, with Cal’s 10-year March Madness drought also in mind. That streak snapping likely comes down to these next two days, in which the Golden Bears will have two separate mountains to climb: beating Florida State in the second round on Wednesday, i.e., the hottest team in the conference, then becoming just the third team all year to beat Duke on Thursday. (I know that they’re without Caleb Foster now, but, c’mon. It’s still Duke.) Two wins and the Bears are in. Lose the first and they’re almost certainly out. Beat the Seminoles and don’t get embarrassed by the Blue Devils? That’ll make Selection Sunday mighty, mighty interesting.
Virginia Tech: Sigh. Add another heartbreak to the counter. The 2025-26 season has essentially been nothing but a torture chamber for Virginia Tech fans, specifically designed to squeeze every last bit of enjoyment out of watching Hokie basketball. Well, the electric collar may have finally been switched to lethal on Tuesday, as the Hokies and their precarious position, either just inside or just outside the bracket, had their dancing dreams dashed via excruciating 95-89 OT defeat to long-since-eliminated Wake Forest in the ACC tourney’s opening round. (You couldn’t have just blown ’em out, Deacs? You had to let ’em run through the wringer one more time?) That probably brings an end to VT’s postseason plans, given a clip of 2-10 in Quad 1, résumé numbers now in the mid-50s, and no remaining opportunities to address those defects. But I’ll at least grant the Hokies a stay of execution—if only for a few more days—until we figure out how the rest of the bubble looks in its final form as conference tournament play continues with Virginia Tech sidelined. Consider it a sympathetic gesture from me to you, Hokies. Sweet mercy will come soon enough.
Stanford: Quite a whirlwind week for Stanford, huh? The Cardinal weren’t even on the page in last Wednesday’s Bauer’s Bubble Watch update, then they jumped all the way into my Monday bracket, and now their chances of receiving an at-large are close to zero once again. How the hell do you manage that all in the span of seven days? Simple: Stanford did what no other bubble team did last week, winning not one but two road games (Saturday’s victory in Raleigh landing in Quad 1), suddenly raising the Cardinal’s profile from the dead, like a phoenix from the ashes, into reasonable metric range, aided greatly by every other bubble team falling flat on their face. Alas, the celebration didn’t last long, as the Cardinal promptly re-entered their coffin in Tuesday’s ACC opening-round loss to Pitt, dropping their reasonable WAB rank of 49th to 58th, and adding a fourth Quad 3 loss to their team sheet. With Stanford done playing until Selection Sunday, they’re probably finished, but I’m not going to completely stomp out their flame of hope, given that they’re still 9-8 in Quad 1/2, should the committee put a lot of emphasis on that statistic in particular. But in reality, it’s most likely over. (I hope that they accept that NIT bid, though. I’m not ready to be done watching Ebuka Okorie just yet.)
BIG 12
From losing to NET #214 New Orleans at home on opening night, to becoming an NCAA Tournament lock with room to spare. Congratulations on an incredible turnaround, TCU! Few teams have been playing better basketball than the Horned Frogs as of late, Saturday’s relatively painless quelling of Cincinnati serving as TCU’s eighth victory in the last nine outings. While those early Quad 3/4 stumbles and predictive numbers still floating in the bubbly 40s could land the Frogs a worse position in the bracket than the 8 or 9 seed that I anticipate, they shouldn’t be enough to jeopardize the bid of a team that has beaten Iowa State at home, Florida on a neutral floor, and Texas Tech in their own gym. Make it four bids in five years for a program that had missed out on 17 straight NCAA Tournaments before Jamie Dixon made his grand return to Fort Worth. Turns out that he’s a pretty darn good coach, eh?
And that’s probably it for the Big 12. I’ll at least give Cincinnati and Oklahoma State the time of day in blurbs below (their respective top-end wins and résumé metrics demand it), but the path to a ninth bid feels unrealistic, even among this ever-imploding bubble.
Take, for example, West Virginia, whose five Quad 1 victories and individual triumphs over each of Kansas, BYU, UCF, and Cincinnati (the latter two on the road) would ordinarily garner a bubble look any day of the week. Problem for the Mountaineers is that everything else matters too. They didn’t schedule worth a damn in non-conference (ranked 271st), their best win there being over NET #109 Pitt at home (Quad 3), and they lost to each of Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Baylor, i.e., the four teams at the bottom of the Big 12 standings. It all results in some rather tragic résumé numbers: 63rd in KPI, 66th in SOR, 67th in WAB, for an average of 65.3. No team has ever gotten an at-large with an average worse than 57.5 (2022 Rutgers), and no team with a WAB ranking worse than 49th nabbed a bid in the metric’s debut season last year. Sad to say it—this ain’t the kind of team sheet that’s going to be breaking history.
Cincinnati: The idea of Cincinnati in March Madness remains extremely far-fetched, but I’m willing to play along for a couple days more. The argument in favor of the Bearcats is pretty simple: they beat Kansas in Lawrence, and they beat Iowa State at home. Those are two of the best wins that you’ll find anywhere on this mess of a bubble. The argument against Cincy is more complex, but also more compelling: they’re 3-11 vs. Quad 1, their résumé metrics are in disrepair (59.3 average), and they lost at home to NET #239 Eastern Michigan. Now, we have seen teams overcome that kind of crushing defeat as recently as this season—in the same conference, no less—but it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than an 18-14 overall record to pull it off. Wednesday’s second-round Big 12 tournament game against UCF is obviously a must-win (one that I quite like the Bearcats’ chances), then it all comes down to the big one: toppling a Goliath in Arizona in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Seems like pretty clear stakes to me—beat the Wildcats and Cincy is very, very likely in, lose to the Wildcats and Cincy is very, very likely out. Let’s hope that they didn’t pack away that Jayhawk/Cyclone-slaying slingshot just yet.
Oklahoma State: We’re really stretching the idea of what constitutes a bubble team at this point, but with all three résumé metrics residing just south of 50, I kinda have to include Oklahoma State, don’t I? Again, this is very much a stretch—the Cowboys are 2-9 in Quad 1, 0-6 against the Big 12’s upper elite, and the owners of just two true road wins in nine tries. (Let’s also not forget that the quality metrics suggest that OSU is more of a borderline NIT team than an NCAAT team.) But those résumé numbers remain a point of interest, especially if the Cowboys can get on a roll in conference tournament play. A win over TCU on Wednesday would likely put the Pokes top-45 in WAB; a win over Kansas on Thursday may place them in the top-40. There’s not much reason to believe that Oklahoma State will log either of those two results—the Horned Frogs have been tough a foe as any lately, and the Jayhawks are unlikely to let their guard down while still jockeying for better protected seed position—but we’re dreamers here at Bauer’s Bubble Watch! The possibilities are endless! (Or, more likely, I don’t want to end up with egg on my face if something outlandish actually comes to fruition. Such a noble cause, I know.)
BIG EAST
I’m afraid that’ll do it for Seton Hall. The Pirates have come oh-so close to notching a résumé-changer on multiple occasions, as all four of their losses to UConn and St. John’s have been by seven points or fewer. Pair that with an 0-2 mark against Villanova, and Seton Hall’s only result with any weight is a pre-Thanksgiving victory over suddenly bubbly NC State. It’s just not going to cut it; not when every metric is north of 50 and there are twice as many Quad 3 losses as Quad 1 wins on this team sheet. No, the only way that the Pirates can poke their head into the conversation again is by disposing of Creighton on Thursday, then unseating the top-seeded Johnnies in Friday’s semifinals. And at that point… You might as well just win the whole darn thing, right? Not the ending that Shaheen Holloway and company wanted, but considering where this program was a year ago—7-25 overall and 211th in NET on Selection Sunday—you have to look on the sunny side of life. It was a good year in South Orange, tournament invite or not.
And that means, barring the emergence of a bid thief, that the Big East is a three-bid league for the second time in three years. Yeesh.
BIG TEN
Are the UCLA Bruins home-court merchants? Almost certainly. Is that enough to get you into the NCAA Tournament in present year? Sure seems like it! I’m not sure how well UCLA’s single victory outside of the Pacific Time Zone against NET #136 Penn State will sit in the stomachs of the selection committee, but I’m hardly concerned about whether or not the Bruins will make the field in the first place, given that they’ve taken down each of Purdue, Illinois, and Nebraska in Pauley Pavilion, while also at least having a handful of worthwhile results to show away from home in the top two quadrants (Washington, Oregon, USC). With those three victories over protected seeds and every metric but KPI ranked 31st or higher, we’re good to call it a day, even if UCLA is a no-show in Chicago this week (an outcome that one might expect at this point). Best of luck to anyone who picks the Bruins to advance in their bracket!
Bauer’s Bubble Watch stays in the City of Angels a paragraph longer, but for the inverse reason: USC is officially toast. With a 54th-ranked WAB and six Quad 2 wins, maybe the selection committee would be willing to offer the Trojans a second look with an extended stay in the Big Ten tournament. But as losers in each of their last seven, I don’t see them being afforded that luxury, nor do I see them playing well enough to make such scenario a reality. SoCal is so cooked.
Iowa: Is there a world where Iowa misses the NCAA Tournament? Very unlikely, but I’m not ready to call the Hawkeyes an absolute certainty either. A 4-9 Quad 1 record and 43.0 résumé metric average entering champ week are not exactly pretty numbers to be toting in the most important areas of your team sheet. My guess is that the committee will wave the Hawkeyes through via sniff test; their NET and quality numbers are simply too strong to exclude (a rank of 25th in the former would make for a record snub), and they just gave both Michigan and Nebraska (in Lincoln) a real sweat, even though Iowa was on the losing end of both battles. That’s kind of a microcosm of Iowa’s season, right? Good, but not great? Well, in 2026, “good” is all you need to be to make the big dance, and even that designation is probably too high of a standard. Still, I wouldn’t test that theory by tacking on a Quad 3 loss to Maryland in the Big Ten tournament at the eleventh hour. But assuming the Hawkeyes take care of business there, then merely show up against Ohio State on Thursday, I don’t think that they’ll have anything left to fret about.
Ohio State: Out of principle, I simply cannot decree a team that is 3-10 in Quad 1 and 1-9 in Quad 1A a total NCAA Tournament lock. It would be unprecedented! That said… I don’t really see any way that Ohio State can possibly be left out at this point. As uninspiring as that Q1 mark may be (and it may get even more uninspiring if OSU falls to Iowa on Thursday), it’s just not going to be enough to jeopardize a résumé that ranks 36th or better in every single metric but KPI—not when we’ve seen worse marks as recently as last year (North Carolina at 1-12, Xavier at 1-9) get in with inferior metric profiles. It would take a 2024-like inundation of bid thieves for OSU to feel any pressure of missing the postseason, with a blowout loss in Thursday’s third round to Maryland probably also required. Indeed; after being mediocre for the first 90% of the season, the Buckeyes just so happened to turn it on at exactly the right time, and that’ll almost certainly be enough for a bid. (That’s college hoops in 2026 for ya.) Ah, well. At least I’m happy for Bruce Thornton. He and Braden Smith and Nick Martinelli and the like are the last of a dying breed called loyalty. It’s good to see guys like that get their moment in the sun.
Indiana: Y’know, when I said that Saturday’s bubblicious meeting in Columbus between Ohio State and Indiana was effectively an elimination game for the Hoosiers if they lost (which they did indeed do), I wasn’t counting on the entire rest of the bubble losing alongside them. Silly me for thinking that this bubble was better than that! As a consequence, Indiana is very much alive, and with Wisconsin emerging victorious at Purdue as well, the Badgers have scooched up into the NET top-30, giving the Hoosiers another direly needed data point in their favor. Honestly, with a WAB rank of 47th and victories over Purdue, Wisconsin, and UCLA (in Los Angeles) in tow, I wouldn’t be all that shocked if the selection committee had Indiana in the field right now. I would hate it, since a record of 6-13 in Quad 1/2 games would be among the very worst to receive an at-large bid in the NET era, but when you’re scrounging for meaningful data points in a bubble as pitiful as this, a couple really good wins in a pool of mediocrity stand out more than they really should. Think you can best the Boilers a second time this season on Thursday? That could very well be enough to clinch it. (Just don’t overlook Northwestern on Wednesday… Ya already got clawed by the Cats once.)
SEC
I think we’re good to call Texas A&M a lock. Been a bit of a roller coaster season in year one of Buckyball, oscillating between the Aggies’ empty non-con slate, a flaming start in the SEC, and early February’s sudden dry spell. But back-to-back victories over Kentucky and LSU to close the regular season mean that a smooth landing has been achieved just the same. It’s surely a bit concerning that A&M finished 0-5 against the teams ahead of them in the conference standings, especially when they logged just two non-conference victories outside of Quad 4 (Florida State, Pitt), but a team that’s notched four road wins in Quad 1 to complement SOR and WAB marks of 32nd and 37th, respectively, has no business being on the chopping block in the discussion room. The Aggies are positioned for a 9 or 10 seed on Selection Sunday, the former more likely if they advance out of the second round, the latter more likely if they lose to Oklahoma or South Carolina on Thursday instead.
Missouri: I’m only mildly concerned about Missouri. Losing at home in a very winnable game against Arkansas in the regular-season finale stings, especially when a victory would have given the Tigers a second bye in the SEC tourney, and doubly so when metrics in the mid-40s seem to indicate a profile that’s just a bid thief or two away from playing in Dayton. But I just have a hard time ever seeing Missouri on the field’s exterior with the wins that they have in hand. They’re one of only two teams in the conference to beat Florida. They’ve also knocked off Tennessee and Vanderbilt in Columbia, as well as Kentucky and Texas A&M in their own buildings, without ever losing to a team outside the top-100 in NET. The wins are the most important thing when it comes to making the tournament, and Mizzou’s got ’em. Maybe they’ll be playing in the First Four on Tuesday or Wednesday when it’s all said and done—very possible if they lose Thursday’s cat fight against the Kentucky/LSU winner—but even a loss there shouldn’t be enough to knock the Tigers out of March altogether.
Texas: I’m more than mildly concerned about Texas. It wouldn’t be this way if the Longhorns had just gone and taken care of business against Oklahoma in the regular season finale like they were supposed to, but lo and behold, the Horns had to lose and make it interesting. Yes, Texas has the wins just like Missouri—six of ’em land in Quad 1, five of them against teams very likely to make the NCAA Tournament, including a bona fide elite victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa. But are those six wins enough to overlook the holes in this team sheet elsewhere? That win over Bama is Texas’ only in Quad 1A; they’ve lost the other nine. They’re also 1-3 in Quad 2 for a grand total of 7-12 in the two upper tiers, with a 3-1 clip in Quad 3 making for a dastardly record of 10-13 in non-Q4 contests. Pair that with a résumé average pushing 50, and I’d be pressing the panic button… if not for last year, in which the Longhorns were granted an appearance in the First Four with a 10-15 Q1-3 record and 52.3 résumé, unsightly marks made stomachable by seven Quad 1 wins. (I guess Rodney Terry must have imparted some sort of Like Mike mediocrity powers onto Sean Miller when Texas and Xavier met in Dayton last season.) If history holds, the Horns can pack their belongings for UD Arena once again, so long as they don’t slip up against Ole Miss in the SEC tourney’s first round on Wednesday. Five losses in the last six would surely leave a sour taste in the selection committee’s mouth.
Auburn: Yes, we are still talking about 16-15 Auburn as a potential NCAA Tournament team. That’s how bad the bubble is! It’s indecent! It’s obscene! It’s downright preposterous! It’s… the state of college athletics in 2026. But I don’t need to go down that rabbit hole of a rant for the umpteenth time. Auburn is, after all, an isolated case in how much leeway a team can receive for scheduling tough, as tough as any team in the country, and then promptly losing half of those games. I mean, if you just looked at the metrics, you’d probably take Auburn before just about any other team on this bubble—45th in WAB, 44th in SOR, 37.3 quality average—there’s a reason that the Tigers’ tournament case persists like a cockroach that just won’t die! But they simply must be on the outside of the field right now. In a season where people are actually bickering about the at-large merits of a 31-0 team, we cannot have that sort of discussion in good faith while also arguing in favor of a team that has won one more game than it’s lost. Remember: no team has ever been granted an at-large with 16 losses prior to the tournament; I don’t expect that Auburn will be the first. But if the Tigers can string together two or especially three wins between now and Sunday, they’ll be right on the doorstep, whether you like it or not.
Oklahoma: Eh, what’s the harm in giving the Sooners a shout? They deserve it; no team has pulled off a bigger 180 on its season than Oklahoma, winners in six of the last eight since starting SEC play 1-9. Probably too little, too late, unfortunately, as a WAB of 57th and record of 3-9 in Quad 1 are generally non-starters for tournament inclusion. But a path to the Madness remains nonetheless, especially with other bubble teams seemingly dragging themselves out of contention on a nightly basis. Let’s say the Sooners parlay this hot streak into a march to the SEC semis, taking out South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Arkansas along the way. That would almost certainly be enough to get their name in deliberations in time for the weekend seed scrub. Do I think that it’s very likely to happen? No. But I don’t want to be the jackass who didn’t have Oklahoma on his Bubble Watch in a world where it does! We’ll soon see if these late-season heroics materialize into something more legitimate.
OTHERS
They did it, y’all. They actually did it. Through blowouts and buzzer beaters, knockouts and nail-biters, the Miami (OH) RedHawks have finished the 2025-26 regular season 31-0. They’re just the fifth team to go perfect prior to the postseason since the tournament expanded to 64 in 1985, joining 1991 UNLV, 2014 Wichita State, 2015 Kentucky, and 2021 Gonzaga in the undefeated Hall of Fame. And while the RedHawks won’t sniff the 1 seed that those four teams got, they’ll get their taste of March Madness just the same. Even if Miami pulls the unlikely play of getting stomped by UMass in the MAC quarterfinals on Thursday, they’re still going dancing. I mean, if we’re not putting a team that won 30 more games than it lost in the NCAA Tournament, then what are we even doing here? Conference auto-bid or not, the RedHawks’ spot in the bracket is confirmed. What an unbelievable story out of little Oxford, Ohio, man.
Much less of an unbelievable story—simply because it’s extremely believable that they would get to this spot eventually like they always do—is Utah State, who we can finally lock after Saturday’s successful defense of the Spectrum against wily New Mexico. With Mountain West regular season title and top-40 metrics across the board in hand, the Aggies can settle in for March for the sixth time in seven seasons. The question now is whether or not the MWC will be a one-bid league for the first time since 2017; my guess is no—Utah State has hardly been infallible as of late, and a wide variety of decent teams (New Mexico, San Diego State, Grand Canyon, Nevada, Boise State, Colorado State—take your pick) are more than capable of flipping the switch for a couple days and getting their March Madness invite the automatic way. Bubble teams will be wearing Aggie blue and white for the entirety of the weekend.
Also, I want to believe that there’s a path to an at-large for South Florida should the Bulls stumble in the American tournament… But I’m highly skeptical. Even with a 7-5 mark across Quad 1/2, the résumé numbers just seem prohibitive, most notably in that 61st-ranked WAB, the selection committee’s favorite new metric. No team with a WAB beyond the top 50 got selected for the bracket last season. Even in a bubble as wretched as this one, I don’t see the committee reaching that far down the rankings for a team sheet that has a single home victory Utah State to show in terms of quality results against fellow at-large likelies. Just get the job done in Birmingham this week, Bulls. The Sun Belt copycat ladder format should serve you well.
Saint Louis: Man, Saint Louis picked a pretty awful time to crash and burn. The Billikens just haven’t been playing very good basketball for three full weeks now, the latest stinker being Saturday’s absolute no-show at George Mason, in which SLU trailed by 34 late to take a metric nosedive across the board. It was just seven days ago that the Billikens were top-30 in all measures except WAB; now KPI is Saint Louis’ only metric in the top 30. Again, I think all this worry is for naught, as the Billikens built up more than enough goodwill during that 18-game winning streak to survive a stretch this like this, even if a Wins Above Bubble poking into the 40s for the first time in months gives you reason to bate your breath. Just don’t do anything silly, like losing to Thursday’s Fordham/George Washington winner in Friday’s Atlantic 10 quarterfinals, and we’ll be all set. Don’t forget, Billikens—an entire bubble is depending on you to hoist the conference trophy in Pittsburgh, lest an at-large bid be nabbed from out of the field. Do you really want to let the Auburns and Indianas of the world down? On second thought…
Santa Clara: Did Santa Clara do enough? I sure hope so. It’s been an agonizing 30-year wait for the Broncos’ grand return to March Madness, and they’ve never been closer than this. I’d have been pretty pessimistic about their odds had they come up short in the WCC semifinals against Saint Mary’s; good thing that didn’t happen. If the Broncos do get into the dance, Sash Gavalyugov’s game-clinching triple with 12 seconds left will be played on loop ad nauseam. (One of the best games I’ve watched this entire season, by the way.) Though, whereas Dave Flemming and Sean Farnham seemed utterly convinced that such a result guarantees Santa Clara for March, I’m going to take a bit more of pragmatic approach. The Broncos are still 2-6 in Quad 1, after all, with home and neutral victories over the Gaels serving as the only such triumphs over other at-large teams. They’ve still got that awful December loss to Loyola Chicago, and they haven’t logged any true-road victories better than NET #97 Xavier. But when you push all that aside and you look at the metrics—the numbers that most typically correlate with tournament selection year in and year out—you’ve got the profile of a team that gets in nine times out of 10. I still think it’s quite likely that Santa Clara ends up in the First Four when it’s all said and done, especially once bid thieves have wreaked their havoc on the bubble. But this should finally, finally be the year that the Broncos get to put on their dancing shoes. (Or dancing hooves? Not sure how that works.)
VCU: Ya know, bubble teams, there may be a second option out of the A-10 to hitch your wagon to. I’m not saying that VCU is more likely to make the field than Saint Louis or anything—there’s still a pretty sizable gap in résumés, especially since the Billikens got the better of the Rams twice—but they are playing much better ball than SLU as of late, and with each passing day, it’s looking more and more likely that VCU is going to make the tournament after all. Saturday’s bubble massacre, in which just about every team facing a “must-win game” did exactly the opposite, came just 24 hours removed from the Rams completing the season sweep of Dayton, a result that could solidify in Quad 1, should the Flyers finish in the NET top-75 (#76 currently). It’s a collection of solid results like that and a surprisingly helpful non-conference strength of schedule (ranked 94th) that place VCU in the top-42 across all three résumé metrics, in spite of the lack of a win against a team firmly in the field. And though the Rams are still very much in competition with other bubble teams for a spot in the dance—likely slotted for the First Four as we speak—they’d be much a sightlier choice as the Atlantic 10’s automatic bid than a pure bid thief like Dayton or Saint Joseph’s, should Saint Louis falter along the way. A three-bid A-10 would not be out of the question if both SLU and VCU fail to prevail. (Bubble teams are quaking in their boots at the thought.)
New Mexico/San Diego State: I’m opting to group these two together in one paragraph, as I think the outlook and stakes for each are pretty much identical. Outlook: Not great. Both New Mexico and San Diego State are almost certainly on the outside of the field at present moment, sporting similar résumé averages north of 50, Quad 1 marks of 2-6 and 2-7, and each lacking any of the sort of punchy victories needed to stand out amid this bubble fluff. (Gun to my head, I’d take the Lobos over the Aztecs by a hair—give me a road win at VCU and a home win against Santa Clara over SDSU’s lone at-large victory vs. Utah State in Viejas.) Stakes: Get to work in the Mountain West tournament, or watch March Madness from the couch. New Mexico and San Diego State will likely be facing Boise State and Colorado State in the second round, respectively. That’s a scary sight for each, as the Broncos swept the Lobos in the regular season, while the Rams, winners of eight in the last nine as the MWC’s most dangerous team, split with the Aztecs. Victory is mandatory for both UNM and SDSU to remain in contention. Accomplish that, and we’re looking at the Lobos and Aztecs duking it out in Friday’s semifinals. Winner hangs around in the at-large picture (especially if Utah State is waiting on the other half of the bracket), loser departs for the NIT. Get it? Got it? Good.