NCAA Tournament Watch: Bubble decisions, top four seed projections

15 conference champions were crowned on Saturday, plus plenty of movement along the bubble and more action to come ahead of the NCAA Tournament Selection Show later on Sunday night.

Let’s break down who’s in, who’s out, who’s earning a one-seed and update the NCAA Tournament Master Sheet. That big ole thing is nearly complete now. Find it at the end of the post.

Conference Champs

As stated, 15 teams earned auto-bids. As much as I’d love to give each game its own spotlight, it’s far more practical to list them and move on. Here goes:

• America East: Vermont
• MEAC: Norfolk State
• MAAC: Saint Peter’s
• Big 12: Kansas
• Mountain West: Boise State
• SWAC: Texas Southern
• Big East: Villanova
• MAC: Akron
• Big Sky: Montana State
• ACC: Virginia Tech
• C-USA: UAB
• Southland: Texas A&M Corpus Cristi
• WAC: New Mexico State
• Big West: Cal State Fullerton

The Ivy League, A-10, SEC, Big Ten and AAC championships are all to come today. I’ll say it again: spread these championship games out over the week. Especially the smaller schools. Let them have the weekday spotlight rather than serve as afterthoughts on the busiest college basketball day of the year. That’s my very short rant.

Top Four Seed Projections

Here’s what I have as of Sunday morning. I’ll discuss below.

Top 16 seeds (in order):

1. Gonzaga (1)
2. Arizona (1)
3. Kansas (1)
4. Baylor (1)
5. Auburn (2)
6. Tennessee (2)
7. Kentucky (2)
8. Purdue (2)
9. Duke (3)
10. Villanova (3)
11. Wisconsin (3)
12. Texas Tech (3)
13. Providence (4)
14. UCLA (4)
15. Arkansas (4)
16. Illinois (4)

WEST (San Francisco)	SOUTH (San Antonio)	MIDWEST (Chicago)	EAST (Philadelphia)
1. Gonzaga	1. Arizona	1. Kansas	1. Baylor
2. Purdue	2. Kentucky	2. Tennessee	2. Auburn
3. Texas Tech	3. Wisconsin	3. Duke	3. Villanova
4. UCLA	4. Arkansas	4. Providence	4. Illinois

Sorry, just had to have Tennessee over Kentucky. Beat the ‘Cats twice and have the same record as of Sunday morning with similar resumes across the board. So three SEC schools as two-seeds with Purdue taking the last spot over Duke. I’m sure the committee will give Coach K a two-seed, but objectively, this team is easily beneath all of the twos.

As for the one-seeds, it seems pretty cut-and-dried. Baylor and Kansas are six-loss teams and No. 1 and No. 2 in the country in Quad 1 wins. I think they occupy the final two one-seeds next to Gonzaga and Arizona.

Bubble

Here’s the full update to the bubble picture after a crazy Saturday:

Last Four Byes	Last Four In	First Four Out	Next Four Out
Memphis	Texas A&M	Michigan	VCU
Miami	Wyoming	Xavier	Oklahoma
Indiana	Rutgers	Wake Forest	Florida
Notre Dame	SMU	BYU	Dayton

Virginia Tech was square on the bubble but took their bid by force with an ACC title victory over Duke on Saturday night. Other bubble teams take note. That’s how you get a bid. Texas A&M followed a similar strategy, triumphantly beating Arkansas and Auburn to go to the SEC title game. They should definitely be in.

Elsewhere, I had an easy time awarding Rutgers and Wyoming the nod over the first teams out due to very strong Quad 1 records. But that last spot was tricky. It’s Pick Your Poison, really. You can go with Michigan, who went just 17-14 but recorded five Quad 1 wins and took down a handful of top 25 teams. I just can’t get there with a 14-loss team, personally.

Or you could favor Wake Forest, who was 23-9 in the ACC but won just one Quad 1 game. I look at them vs. SMU and favor the Mustangs in every category. SMU has one less loss at 23-8, an extra Quad 1 win and a regular-season sweep of Memphis plus a win over Houston to highlight its resume. That’s enough to earn the final spot in my field.

NCAA Tournament Master Sheet

Updates from a wild Saturday:

• FIFTEEN conference champions crowned
• Just 10 teams left to play across five championships today
• Virginia Tech shrinks bubble with ACC title victory

Also, remember the rules:

• 32 Conference champs + 36 at-large bids = 68 total teams
• Locks move to at-large once/if they lose in conference tournament
• Bold teams are IN NCAA Tournament and DONE with season
• Italics = Projected to field

No.	Conference	Champ	At-Large	Locks	Bubble Teams	NET	Record	Quad1
1	AAC	Houston	San Fran.	Houston	SMU	44	23-8	2-2
2	ACC	Virginia Tech	St. Mary’s	Kentucky	Notre Dame	53	21-10	2-8
3	America East	Vermont	Alabama	Duke	Saint Bonaventure	84	20-9	3-4
4	Atlantic 10	Davidson	Baylor	Kansas	Wake Forest	48	23-9	1-4
5	Atlantic Sun	J’ville State	Texas	Texas Tech	Virginia Tech	30	22-12	2-5
6	Big 12	Kansas	Marquette	Villanova	Virginia	83	19-13	4-7
7	Big East	Villanova	Ohio State	Tennessee	Davidson	38	26-5	2-2
8	Big Sky	Montana St.	Seton Hall	Purdue	Dayton	58	23-10	3-2
9	Big South	Longwood	USC	Iowa	VCU	56	21-9	3-3
10	Big Ten	Purdue	UNC	Arkansas	Florida	58	19-13	3-9
11	Big West	CS-Fullerton	LSU	Michigan State	Oklahoma	40	18-15	4-12
12	CAA	Delaware	TCU	Boise State	Xavier	41	18-13	5-8
13	C-USA	UAB	Auburn	SDSU	Rutgers	78	18-13	6-6
14	Horizon	Wright St.	Wisconsin	Arizona	Michigan	34	17-14	5-10
15	Ivy League	Princeton	Providence	UCLA	Indiana	39	20-13	4-8
16	MAAC	St. Peter’s	UCONN	Creighton	North Texas	47	24-6	1-1
17	MAC	Akron	Illinois	Miami	Wyoming	50	25-8	4-5
18	MEAC	Norfolk State	Iowa St.	Memphis	Texas A&M	42	23-11	4-9
19	MVC	Loyola (IL.)	Colorado State		BYU	54	22-10	4-6
20	MWC	Boise State	Kentucky
21	Northeast	Bryant	San Diego St.
22	OVC	Murray St.	Arkansas
23	Pac-12	Arizona	Michigan St.
24	Patriot League	Colgate	Texas Tech
25	SEC	Tennessee	UCLA
26	SoCon	Chattanooga	Creighton
27	Southland	TX A&M CC	Duke
28	Summit League	S. Dakota St.	Iowa
29	Sun Belt	Georgia St.	Miami	Last Four Bye
30	SWAC	TX Southern	Indiana	Last Four Bye
31	WAC	NMSU	Notre Dame	Last Four Bye
32	WCC	Gonzaga	Memphis	Last Four Bye	FIRST FOUR OUT
33			SMU	Last Four IN	Wake Forest
34			Rutgers	Last Four IN	Xavier
35			Texas A&M	Last Four IN	BYU
36			Wyoming	Last Four IN	Michigan