Minnesota let a big chance to get back into the picture slip away as they blew a late lead at home against potential #1 seed Michigan State. They’re not going to make the tournament without a miracle.

South Florida let an early 13 point lead evaporate at #2 Syracuse by allowing a 26-0 run spanning the end of the first half and beginning of the second, letting a marquee win that would almost assuredly have put them in the bracket pass them by. They’ll likely need to win 1-2 more against Cincinnati, @Louisville, or West Virginia down the stretch in order to make the tournament.

Equally important, teams such as Notre Dame and Temple secured important wins that should help them avoid the 8/9 matchups, which is crucial if you want to make the second weekend of the tournament.

29 teams are tightly clustered for the final 16 bids (including the Big West, Sun Belt, and CAA automatic bids), with each of them having more work to do in order to make the tournament, but an open door to walk through should they be able to take care of what they’re supposed to. How many teams avoided harmful losses yesterday? Eye on College Basketball on CBS Sports provides a succinct rundown of yesterday’s activity.

Who will step into the bracket with so many bubble teams seemingly struggling to make their case? Here’s how the bracket has shaken out through Wednesday’s action:

Here is the ranking scale that got us there with all remaining teams under consideration, with 18 days of games left . Note that Arizona is the last team in and Xavier the first team out.

In addition, the conference breakout is included below. The cutoff between virtual locks and teams just “comfortably in” as defined by a better than 98% chance of getting in is between UNLV above. The next cutoff, which denotes which teams should feel comfortable with a greater than 75% chance of receiving a tournament bid occurs between Alabama and Harvard. Of course Harvard should win the Ivy league’s automatic bid as regular season champion and won’t require an at-large bid. “Lost Bids” denote those reserved for teams that could get into the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournament that would not otherwise get an at-large bid, thus shrinking the number of available at-large bids for other teams.

The quick view: Kansas State and Seton Hall greatly improved their tournament resumes by grabbing huge wins over Missouri and Georgetown respectively. That should punch Kansas State’s dance card, and move Seton Hall into a much more secure position with just games against Rutgers and Depaul remaining to get to 10-8 in the Big East.

The rest of the bubble teams that played last night moved closer together near the cut line. In the case of Colorado State, who beat a red hot New Mexico squad last night, this was a good thing. They still find themselves on the wrong side of the bubble, but added a hugely lacking marquee win to their resume and kept themselves in the discussion. Northwestern (Michigan), Miami (@Maryland), NC State (UNC), Xavier (@UMass), and Mississippi State (Kentucky) all let opportunities slip away and find themselves mired in a larger than usual pool of substandard bubble teams that still haven’t distinguished themselves from one another with just 18 days until Selection Sunday.

Who will step into the bracket with so many bubble teams seemingly struggling to make their case? Here’s how the bracket has shaken out through Tuesday’s action:

Let’s also take a quick look ahead at the big games of this evening (with my at-large rankings listed, and 53 Arizona as last team in):

#20 Temple @ #73 La Salle – Important ig 5 matchup for Temple as they try to win the A-10 and La Salle as they try to keep their miniscule tournament hopes alive.

#39 West Virgina @ #22 Notre Dame – Big East clash between Irish team looking for Big East double bye and WVU looking to add a big win.

Nebraska @ #41 Purdue – Purdue appears ok for now, but as a current 11 seed, they can’t afford to lose games like this home clash with 11th place Nebraska.

#4 Michigan State @ #65 Minnesota – Minnesota’s running out of chances to land another big win, while MSU has a #1 seed in their sights.

#51 South Florida @ #2 Syracuse – USF sits in 4th in the Big East at 10-4, but is still on the bubble as it searches for a first marquee win. This game, while a long shot, would go a long way for the Bulls.

#74 Wyoming @ #31 San Diego State – Both teams have been struggling; Wyoming absolutely must have it, while SDSU looks towards improving their seed and securing their bid.

#40 Southern Miss @ UTEP – Southern Miss, coming off a loss to Houston cannot afford to suffer the same fate as Memphis on Saturday, a loss to UTEP.

#68 UCF @ Rice – UCF simply must win to stay alive.

#82 Mississippi @ #75 Tennessee – Both teams have just about run out of chances, so expect a highly contested battle between two desperate teams.

Richmond @ #55 St Joseph’s – St Joe’s has quietly been taking care of business in recent weeks and finds itself very close to the tournament field. Continue to win, and they may just grab a 3rd bid for the A-10.

UCSB @ #46 Long Beach State – Long Beach State takes on Big West rival and second place squad UC Santa Barbara. While the Beach is still undefeated in conference play, it has absolutely no margin for error heading into the Big West tournament.

James Madison @ #52 Drexel – The Dragons lead the CAA and sport a 15 game winning streak, and are coming off a road thrashing of Cleveland State. However, like LBSU, they have no margin for error and must continue winning until at least their conference tournament.

It also coincided with the NCAA’s mock bracket projection, a dress rehearsal of the real committee for media types. A number of insightful articles have been written about them over the weekend, a couple of which I have linked, including one excellent one railing against the pervasiveness of the RPI in all the numbers the NCAA presents to the committee, but discussing the mechanics and thoroughness of the process. Others prefer the simplicity of the RPI. All four are excellent reads if you’re into the workings of the committee or would like to learn more about different measures available to compare teams.

At the top of the bracket, Michigan State continued their strong run towards a number one seed by taking an outright lead in the Big Ten with a win at Purdue, while Ohio State fell to Michigan. Huge clashes between Kansas and Missouri and UNC and Duke are on tap for this week and next, and should help clear up which teams will end up on the #1 and #2 seed lines. For now, Kentucky and Syracuse appear to be in great shape for favorable geographic locations in the Regionals as the top two overall seeds.

Bracketbusters also allowed a few teams to stake their claim to tournament bids and left others wondering what could have been. The biggest winners from the weekend: Wichita State and Murray State. Murray State ran all over St Mary’s, giving them a third big win on their resume and all but guaranteeing a bid should they lose in the Ohio Valley tournament. Wichita State, meanwhile, turned in yet another dominating performance at Davidson, and may have played themselves up into a Sweet 16 seed.

The Colonial Athletic Association also proved to be a big winner. The top 6 teams in the conference standings all won over the weekend, including Drexel winning their 16th straight game at Cleveland State and VCU defeating Northern Iowa to keep their at-large bids alive.

The tough luck team of Bracketbuster Weekend: The Beach. Long Beach State went right to the wire at Creighton, losing on a game winning shot with 0.3 seconds remaining. This was the 8th tough road game for the veteran squad, which has shown that it can take on anyone anywhere. What they haven’t done is win most of these road encounters, with the lone exception a win at then ranked Pittsburgh (to go with a neutral site win over then top-10 Xavier). However, ask Kansas, UNC, Louisville, or San Diego State if they want to see this team again on a neutral floor, and I don’t think you’ll get many takers. The 7th most experienced team in the country, and still undefeated in the Big West conference, they are the type of team that can turn these close road losses into neutral court wins come March.  But first, they’ll have to get there.

Bubble Action

In important Big Ten bubble contests, Illinois was blown out by last place Nebraska, who went on an incomprehensible 43-7 run to end the first half and begin the second. If Bruce Weber’s seat wasn’t hot before that game (and it was), it’s scorching now. Meanwhile, Purdue and Northwestern are hanging on the good side of the bubble. Bill Carmody’s Northwestern squad attempts to make its first ever NCAA Tournament, and has a chance for a marquee win when it hosts Michigan on Tuesday night.

In the Big East, Seton Hall, South Florida, and Cincinnati notched important wins in the early part of the week, while Notre Dame and Marquette moved towards high seeds in the bracket. Connecticut appeared to be going the wrong direction fast after getting run off their home floor by Marquette. But as I type this, Shabazz Napier just buried a 35 footer with 0.7 seconds remaining in overtime to beat Villanova and grab a monumentally important win for the defending champs.

Big 12 – Texas faltered at Oklahoma State, while Kansas State got a hugely important road win at Baylor. Both sit well on the good side of the bubble, but a Texas squad ranked much higher in efficiency based ranking systems than in RPI or human polls can put itself in a great position by beating that same Baylor team that has struggled in recent weeks.

ACC – NC State had a disastrous week, blowing a 20 point lead over Duke on Thursday, and getting soundly beaten by Florida State on Saturday. They are the first team out of the bracket today and will look back wistfully on that wasted opportunity against Duke if they end up on the wrong side of the bubble in 3 weeks.

SEC – Vandy got an important win at Georgia on Sunday and can finally breathe a little easier with their tournament standing. Alabama and Mississippi State, not so much, after Alabama suspended Tony Mitchell for the remainder of the season and Mississippi State dropped yet another conference game, this time to conference bottom dweller Auburn.  As for Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi, and Tennessee, time is quickly running out if it hasn’t already.

In the Pac 12, California kept rolling along with wins over Oregon and Oregon State and appears safe for now. Washington and Arizona, far from safe. Washington completed a season sweep of Arizona this weekend, however, and moved back to the good side of the bubble. Both of those teams, as well as Oregon and Colorado, will need to win the games they’re supposed to and then some if they want to play in the big tournament. Oregon’s win at Stanford last night was a good step forward.

Gonzaga, Memphis, and Southern Miss did anything but help their respective causes, all losing conference games to teams in the bottom half of their respective conferences on Saturday.

Finally, New Mexico grabbed total control of the MWC with wins over San Diego State and UNLV this week, while Temple and St Louis continued to separate themselves from the rest of the Atlantic 10. Xavier and St Joseph’s are trying to pull themselves along with the leaders, while everyone else has fallen off the pack.

Who will step into the bracket with so many bubble teams seemingly struggling to make their case? Here’s how the bracket has shaken out through Sunday’s action:

I remind everyone that I take the approach of projecting what will happen on Selection Sunday, rather than trying to create the bracket as it would look today. This means that teams will have to exceed or fall short of expectations the rest of the way to move up or down, and doing what is expected would likely be enough to stay exactly in place. Of course, the closer we get, the closer the two converge and I believe the two methods would provide similar results at this point.

Here is the ranking scale that got us there with all remaining teams under consideration. I have tried to calculate the percentage chance of a team in a similar spot getting an at-large bid at this point, but since it’s on a top to bottom sliding scale, there are imperfections in these calculations. That said, they look pretty accurate at this point, so even if two or three teams look a little bit off, I feel comfortable publishing those probabilities at this point. The main issue is that the team ratings assume they live up to expectations, so for many of the smaller conference leaders, those odds incorporate their chances of taking care of business in conference tournaments. Should a team such as Belmont lose, they would likely drop in the ratings, so their chance of an at-large bid should they need it is likely lower than the listed odds. I will limit my list to those teams with a greater than 5% chance of earning an at-large bid at this point and going forward. Note that Arizona is the last team in and NC State the first team out.

In addition, the conference breakout is included below. The cutoff between virtual locks and teams just “comfortably in” as defined by a better than 98% chance of getting in is between Indiana and Temple above. The next cutoff, which denotes which teams should feel comfortable with a greater than 75% chance of receiving a tournament bid occurs between Alabama and Harvard. Of course Harvard should win the Ivy league’s automatic bid as regular season champion and won’t require an at-large bid. “Lost Bids” denote those reserved for teams that could get into the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournament that would not otherwise get an at-large bid, thus shrinking the number of available at-large bids for other teams.

From best to worst of these conferences, here we go:

Big Ten

Nebraska (153) – Big Ten expansion to add Nebraska football felt right in year one, and produced excellent results. Nebraska basketball? Still not there. The Cornhuskers have long been a largely irrelavant basketball program in the Big 12. While the Big 12 has many excellent programs at the top of the conference, the Big Ten provides additional challenges when it comes to the depth of good teams from the top to bottom of the conference. Doc Sadler may be on the hot seat after leading a fairly experienced side to a 3-10 conference record to date, and losing at home to another team in this bucket, Wake Forest, in the ACC/Big Ten challenge. Note that there are other coaches from the linked ESPN article who will be mentioned again here. Edit: And of course, Nebraska goes on a 43-7 run and runs bubble team Illinois out of their building, which should move them into the top 150. I think that will keep the guy at #1 above atop that list.

All Time Worst: 2009 Indiana, coming off a scandal under Kelvin Sampson finished 212th in Tom Crean’s first year. This conference record appears safe this season.

Big East

Depaul (173) – Depaul is in year four of their run of finishing outside the top 150. The first two years came under Jerry Wainwright, with the two most recent residing under Oliver Purnell. The Blue Demons have struggled to attract top talent to Depaul playing in the Big East, and the top talent that shows up doesn’t stay there long enough. The program has shown more signs of life this year than in the past, but with what seems a perpetual problem of an inexperienced roster, Depaul is still clearly struggling to keep up in the Big East.

St John’s (156) – This one could be seen coming from a mile away. Under second year coach Steve Lavin, St John’s is playing with a roster almost entirely made up of newcomers at this point, making them not only the least experienced team in 2012, but the least experience major conference team of the last 5 years (0.49 years of experience on average). There is definitely some talent on this roster, but their play has been marked with the kind of inconsistency you’d expect from a team full of freshmen. I expect this to be a one-year drop off, but for this program to see better days ahead. Note: St John’s has now beaten UCLA since I initially wrote this, showcasing their upside. This may move them above the 150 line by the time you read this.

All Time Worst: 2010 Depaul (202). This appears to be safe this season as well unless Depaul completely folds down the stretch.

Big 12

Texas Tech (238) – Texas Tech has basically started over under new coach Billy Gillespie. The results haven’t been pretty, which is a trend under new coaches with ransacked and inexperienced rosters. The one bright side is they didn’t go 0-for conference play, as they beat a completely uninspired Oklahoma team last week. The talent will start showing up again next year, but this situation doesn’t have the makings of a quick turnaround to NCAA appearances.

Big 12 Worst: Tie. Colorado 2007 (168 under Ricardo Patten) and Colorado 2009 (168 under Jeff Bzdelik). Texas Tech looks poised to leave these teams in their wake this season.

SEC

Auburn (169) – In year two under head coach Tony Barbee, Auburn has improved from an absolutely dismal season last year. However, unlike most teams on this list, Auburn isn’t trying to rebuild with a young new core of talented but inexperienced underclassmen. In fact, 5 of Auburn’s top 6 players by minutes played this season are upperclassmen. They will need to improve as a team, but also likely add some additional talent to their roster if they want to improve in upcoming years and fill their brand new $92 million stadium. Note: Following the trend above, Auburn beat Mississippi St on their home court on Saturday, which should move them closer to #150.

SEC Worst: 2011 LSU was ranked 227th at year end.

ACC

Boston College (226) – This story is very similar to St John’s, except likely with less talented freshmen. Second year head coach Steve Donahue inherited a very experienced team in his first year, but failed to make the NCAA tournament on a side made up of seniors and one early entry junior guard, Reggie Jackson. Something tells me Donahue might like to have him around this year. BC ranks 344th of 345 in experience, after having to replace their top 8 scorers from last year. To be fair, BC has played tougher in conference play than they did against their non-conference schedule, which included losses to Holy Cross, Massachusetts, Boston University, Harvard, and Rhode Island, making different kinds of waves by pulling off a shocking victory over ACC leader Florida State. The future is brighter for BC, but Steve Donahue will have to prove he can recruit in a BCS conference setting, after previously spending his time at Ivy league school Cornell.

Wake Forest (204) – Like Auburn, Wake Forest has also improved a little bit this season. And like Auburn, not nearly enough. Jeff Bzdelik is on the hottest of hot seats with the Wake Forest fan base. It remains to be same whether he’s getting the same heat from Wake Athletic Director Ron Wellman. Unlike Auburn, Wake Forest has a stable full of nationally rated high school seniors ready to provide instant help next season. Recruits such as Devin Thomas. If you haven’t heard about that play yet, go watch it now. For a school that was ranked #1 in January 2009, the past two seasons have been beyond disappointing for the Demon Deacons. Hopefully there aren’t too many more like them in their future.

Georgia Tech (154) – First year head coach Brian Gregory has struggled with a depleted roster, particularly on the road, where Georgia Tech has been absolutely abysmal this season. Now Tech’s leading scorer, Glen Rice Jr, has been suspended indefinitely. Atlanta is an easy place to recruit to, and Georgia Tech has historically had very talented teams. They will need to rebuild quickly though to drum up some of the support the program lost in Paul Hewitt’s final years into this year.

All Time Record: 2011 Wake Forest (251); While Coach Jeff Bzdelik’s Big 12 record may fall this season, his ACC mark looks safe for the foreseeable future with Boston College’s improved play over the last few weeks.

Pac 12

USC (213) – The Trojans, under coach Kevin O’Neill, have displayed one of the largest disparities in performance between two ends of the floor in NCAA history. On the defensive end, the Trojans have played extremely hard, and for the most part, extremely well. Their adjusted defensive efficiency of 93.9 ranks 53rd in the country and 5th in the Pac 12. Their problem is on the offensive end of the court, where they can’t seem to find anyone consistently able to put the ball in the basket, ranking 322nd with an adjusted efficiency of just 88.8. They’re the NCAA equivalent of my Thursday night men’s league team. Help should be on the way next season in the form of two former top-100 recruits and Wake Forest transfers, junior Ari Stewart and sophomore JT Terrell, whose greatest impacts are felt on the offensive end of the floor. They’re also an extremely young team, ranking 316th in experience this year, so there may be help on their current roster as well.

Arizona State (234) – Herb Sendek is in serious trouble here, as Arizona State is 8-19, and has won just one game by double digits (hilarious) this season. They have a fairly young team, ranked #257 in experience, but it’s hard to come up with a silver lining for the man NC State ran out of town 6 years ago for Sidney Lowe.

And saving the worst for last….

Utah (304) – Yes #304. That’s not a misprint. And two Pac 12 teams (Washington State and Arizona State) actually managed to lose to them. Transfers, injuries, suspensions, you name it, Utah has dealt with it. Utah is also in the strange position of making the transition from the Mountain West conference to a Big 6 conference, doing so under a first year head coach. They are a cautionary tale to teams such as TCU, SMU, and Houston, that will be making the leap to the Big 12 and Big East over the next few seasons. Even so, it takes quite the set of circumstances to be ranked outside the top 300 with the resources a program such as Utah has at its disposal, especially when you consider prior to last season only 4 had finished outside the top 200, with 213 as the worst.

Pac 12 All Time Record: 2008 Oregon State (210); 3 teams may break that mark this season alone. And Utah is set to shatter the major conference mark of 251 set by Wake Forest last year. Congrats to Utah, the worst of the worst major conference teams.

The remainder of the bracket is in far more a state of flux than the top. The last three days were a microcosm of the last 3 weeks: not many teams have been playing consistent basketball and positioning themselves well for the stretch run and for bracket seeding. The good news, for those who have, is that they can make up a lot of ground quickly and put themselves in excellent position. Notre Dame, St Louis, Temple, New Mexico, and Wichita State are excellent examples of teams that have taken advantage of shoddy play across the country in recent weeks by moving themselves into the favored seeds in Round 1 of the tournament. Saint Mary’s, Creighton, Virginia, Alabama, and Mississippi State haven’t taken advantage and find themselves sliding towards the Bubble in a hurry. St Jospeh’s and Tennesse are also racing towards the cut line, but in an upwards trajectory from the outside.

Bubble Action

In important Big Ten bubble contests, Purdue beat Illinois, while Minnesota and Northwestern missed out on big chances for a statement victory against Ohio St and Indiana respectively. Illinois and Northwestern find themselves among the last four teams in and better start winning quickly, while Minnesota is currently on the outside looking in and will have to win a game they’re not supposed to as well as those they are. Purdue has given itself a little margin for error, but it better not take it for granted as they are still just a 10 seed in this update.

In the Big East, Connecticut, Seton Hall, South Florida, and Cincinnati notched important wins in the early part of the week, while Notre Dame continued its hot run and moved itself to a position comfortably within the bracket. West Virginia has a huge tilt with Pittsburgh tonight that both teams desperately need.

Big 12 – Texas secured another important win over Oklahoma, while Kansas State continued it’s slide towards the tournament cut line, this time in a home loss to rival Kansas.

ACC – Virginia and Miami suffered tough losses to Clemson and UNC respectively, both failing to improve their resume, and Virginia probably hurting their projected seed in the process.

SEC – Outside of Kentucky,Florida, and maybe Vanderbilt, all the teams that looked good a couple weeks into conference play have been a disaster this month. Alabama, Mississippi State, and Arkansas suffered bad losses that continued to hurt their tournament profiles, while LSU and Tennessee have gone the opposite direction beating MSU and Arkansas respectively this week to continue their march upwards towards the tournament bubble. It’s tough to see this conference getting more than 5 bids at this point, so it should be interesting watching Bama, Ole Miss, Miss St, Arkansas, LSU, and Tennessee battle it out for two spots over the next three weeks.

Finally, Colorado State and Wyoming completely blew their chances against the MWC bottom feeders last night, delivering an enormous blow to each of their chances at a tournament bid.

Who will step into the bracket with so many bubble teams seemingly struggling to make their case? Here’s how the bracket has shaken out through Wednesday night’s action (Note: For the first time yet this year, I have attempted to follow seeding procedures used by the Committee in terms of avoiding conference matchups in the first round, etc. I have mostly succeeded by shifting teams along a line, but have not moved any teams up or down a line):

I remind everyone that I take the approach of projecting what will happen on Selection Sunday, rather than trying to create the bracket as it would look today. This means that teams will have to exceed or fall short of expectations the rest of the way to move up or down, and doing what is expected would likely be enough to stay exactly in place. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section as to what this entails if you would like further details, but it’s obviously not without its challenges to project the field in this way. It also has its advantages of taking into account upcoming schedules rather than ignoring them altogether.

Here is the ranking scale that got us there with all remaining teams under consideration. I don’t know if Davidson or George Mason’s at large bids have any legs left, but I felt like giving them a shoutout for having their respective conference leads at this point, so they stay on the table for today. Cleveland State, with three straight losses, gets no such benefit of the doubt. (In a warped, still bitter about March 2009 kind of way, that makes me smile for half a second, until I realize that loss was partially responsible for the firing that brought Jeff Bzdelik to Winston-Salem. Nothing more to see on this tangent, rant over, moving along….) Note that the last spot above was a virtual coin flip between Illinois and Cincinnati:

In addition, the conference breakout is included below. The cutoff between virtual locks and teams just “comfortably in” is between Florida State and New Mexico above. The next cutoff, which denotes where teams are currently on the bubble and need to win the games they’re supposed to over the remainder of the season occurs between Iowa St and Connecticut. “Lost Bids” denote those reserved for teams that could get into the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournament that would not otherwise get an at-large bid, thus shrinking the number of available at-large bids for other teams.

UNLV, Wichita State, Marquette, and Louisville all secured important wins that either propelled or kept them in the seeded (1-4) lines of the tournament bracket with just 4 weeks to go.

Meanwhile, the weekend before Bracket Busters was not very good to Mid Majors. Cleveland State (two losses) and Iona (loss to Loyola MD) likely saw their at large hopes destroyed, while Murray St, Harvard, and Creighton all suffered tough losses that will damage their prospective at large hopes. Harvard at least has the benefit of the Ivy league lead and the regular season champion determining their automatic bid. Murray St and Creighton do not have this advantage and would be wise to beat St Mary’s and Long Beach State respectively in home Bracket Busters tilts this weekend.

Temple and St Louis achieved separation atop the A10, Memphis and USM did so in Conference USA, and VCU, Drexel, and George Mason kept winning to make the CAA a 3 team race to the finish.

Bubble Action

In important Big Ten bubble contests, Purdue beat Northwestern, while Illinois failed to gain any positive momentum, falling at Michigan.

In the Big East, Pittsburgh lost two important contests that should put any bubble talk on hold, falling to fellow bubble teams Seton Hall and USF. Cincinnati was blown out by Marquette, while UConn suffered the same fate in the Carrier Dome against Syracuse.

Big 12 – Texas won a hugely important bubble contest over Kansas State, vaulting them ahead of K State in the pecking order for the first time this season.

Finally, Arizona, California and Oregon had successful weekend sweeps in the Pac 12, while Washington, UCLA, Colorado, and Stanford each split their two games over the weekend, the equivalent of treading water. Unfortunately, none of these teams were in a great position to do so. Washington now has a huge weekend game with Arizona ahead, in what shapes up as a matchup between the last two teams currently in the bracket.

Here’s how the bracket has shaken out following the weekend action:

And here is the ranking scale that got us there with all remaining teams under consideration, as well as a breakdown by conference. Note that the cutoff for the bracket above was between the two Pac 12 schools and Xavier.

In addition, the conference breakout is included below. The cutoff between virtual locks and teams just “comfortably in” is between Florida State and St. Mary’s above. The next cutoff, which denotes where teams are currently on the bubble and need to win the games they’re supposed to over the remainder of the season occurs between Southern Miss and Connecticut. “Lost Bids” denote those reserved for teams that could get into the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournament that would not otherwise get an at-large bid, thus shrinking the number of available at-large bids for other teams.

For each year since 2003, I have tracked the number of major conference teams falling outside the top 100, 150, and 200.

See this chart below:

Futility Track

A combined 4 teams had finished outside the top 200 teams in 8 seasons from 2003-2010: Penn St in ’03 and ’04, Oregon St in ’08, and Indiana in’09. Then 4 teams achieved the feat last year alone, and 6 teams reside in that territory to this point this season.  

An average of 3 teams finished outside the top 150 from 2003-2008, with a high of 4 over that stretch. Then 5 teams in each of 2009, 2010, and 2011. This season: 10 teams with just 4 weeks before Selection Sunday. Are there common threads among them?

To begin to answer this question, I looked back at the 5 teams outside of the top 150 last year to see where they stand:

Wake Forest (251) – 213th in 2012, experience ranking – 266. Jeff Bzdelik appears primed to have his 4th team outside the top 150 in his fifth year as a BCS head coach. Even more impressive: he’s the only coach to hit that mark at multiple schools, and he’s now done it multiple times at each of Colorado and Wake barring a miracle turnaround over Wake’s last 5 games. Hence, the name of the line.

LSU (227) – 79th in 2012, 275 in experience. Kudos to Trent Johnson and LSU for turning it around this year, the only team among those outside the top 200 in 2011 slated to avoid finishing outside the top 150 in 2012.

Auburn (214) – 171 in 2012, 99th experience. Auburn is on pace to finish outside the top 150. Of note here, this would make them the first team to do so with an experience rating better than 200th, as they are currently at 99th by putting an average of 1.9 years of experience per player on the floor.

Depaul (202) – 166th, 262nd in experience. Depaul has maintained its status as the Big East doormat through a neverending string of transfers that never allows it to put a talented experienced squad on the floor. This would mark the 4th straight year that Depaul finished outside the top 150, two under Jerry Wainwright, and two under Oliver Purnell.

Oregon St (160) – 90th, 260th in experience. While not great for many programs, this is actually something of a banner year for Oregon St under First Brother-in-law Craig Robinson. They are on pace to finish above .500 overall for the first time since almost all of its players were born. And if they can hold on, it will also mark their first top 100 finish in the Kenpom era (and most likely since well before that).

So, yes, we have a few repeating teams in this distinguished company. But that doesn’t account for the 10 total teams in 150+ range this year. Who are these other teams? Check back into the Bzdelik Line on Wednesday or Thursday for a rundown of the remaining teams, including one that’s giving Mr Bzdelik’s 2011 Wake Forest squad a run for their money as lowest ranked BCS team of this era.

Baylor still had a better night than Florida State and Arkansas, who had inexplicable losses on the road at Boston College and Georgia respectively. Florida State’s loss was inexplicable in that they gave away first place by losing to the worst ACC team in recent memory, while the way in which Arkansas was manhandled by an SEC bottom dweller does not say good things about their intention of playing in the NCAA Tournament. Both still looked better than Wake Forest did against Virginia, but since this post is about the NCAA tournament, I will relent for the moment and get back on topic.

In mid-major land, there was a striking resemblance to a John Isner tennis match, as all the favorites held serve. Wichita State and Missouri State won in the MVC, the top five teams in the CAA all came away with victories, Temple, St Louis, Xavier, and UMass won in the A-10, and the top 4 teams in the MAC sans Ohio won their games as well. The top teams in the Horizon, Ivy, Sun Belt, OVC, and Mountain West will get their opportunities to do the same in the next two days.

Here’s how the bracket has shaken out following last night’s action:

And here is the ranking scale that got us there with all remaining teams under consideration, as well as a breakdown by conference. Note that the cutoff for the bracket above was between Arizona and Washington.

The following teams are those currently in the top 80 from my most recent bracket projection, whose current RPI is at least 10 spots better or worse than what I would expect their RPI to be on Selection Sunday:

Overrated:

• Northwestern (current 36, projected 66, +30)
• Mississippi (current 51, projected 80, +29)
• Seton Hall (current 33, projected 60, +27)
• Minnesota (current 49, projected 72, +23)
• Miami Fla. (current 37, projected 58, +21)
• Colorado St. (current 23, projected 42, +19)
• Michigan (current 15, projected 24, +19)
• Illinois (current 38, projected 57, +19)
• Mississippi St (current 32, projected 48, +16)
• Arkansas (current 56, projected 71, +15)
• Notre Dame (current 57, projected 71, +15)
• Memphis (current 19, projected 34, +15)
• St. Joe’s (current 42, projected 57, +15)
• Dayton (current 70, projected 84, +14)
• UMass (current 68, projected 81, +13)
• San Diego St (current 18, projected 30, +12)
• UCF (current 65, projected 77, +12)
• NC State (current 53, projected 64, +11)
• Southern Miss (current 7, projected 18, +11)

Not surprisingly, this list has a high correllation of teams receiving multiple bids from the subset of bracketologists who look solely at current attributes and do not project what will happen over the remainder of the season, that are not currently in my bracket. Northwestern, Mississippi, Colorado St, and Arkansas fall into this category.

In addition, teams such as Seton Hall, Minnesota, Illinois, and Mississippi St are ranked higher across the consensus brackets than they are in mine for essentially the same reason.

The conclusion I’ve drawn is that all of these teams may have resumes that look better now than they will 5 weeks from now. As a result, they will need to beat all the teams they should and maybe pull off an upset or two in order to maintain their current line on the consensus bracket, while a bad loss or two may endanger their status in the bracket altogether.

Now here is a list of teams who could end up with a better season ending RPI than they have today if they can take care of business from now until Selection Sunday.

Underrated:

• Belmont (current 90, projected 53, -37)
• Buffalo (current 87, projected 65, -22)
• Iona (current 58, projected 38, -20)
• Ohio (current 80, projected 62, -18)
• Davidson (current 66, projected 49, -17)
• New Mexico (current 43, projected 26, -17)
• Drexel (current 86, projected 70, -16)
• VCU (current 85, projected 69, -16)
• New Mexico State (current 81, projected 68, -13)
• Wyoming (current 71, projected 58, -13)
• Murray St (current 39, projected 27, -12)
• Stanford (current 97, projected 86, -11)
• Wichita St (current 27, projected 16, -11)

Interestingly, with the exception of Stanford, this list is made up entirely of teams outside the Big 6 conferences. Disaggregating the list a little further, Wichita State, New Mexico, and Wyoming belong to perennial mutiple bid leagues. They probably do fall in the camp where they could at a minimum maintain their relative NCAA tournament stock by winning the games they are supposed to via a bump in their records and RPIs that will look good at season’s end.

However, the remainder are in conferences that either occasionally or rarely pull in a second bid. While the intuition is that all the teams on this list could improve their bubble status by taking care of business and improving their RPI ratings, I’ve found in the past that isn’t necessarily the case as there is something else at play with this group. First, the projected RPI ratings are based off a team’s expected performance over the remainder of the season, which is mostly comprised of conference games. These teams are generally at the top of their conferences and are expected to win most if not all of their remaining games, including those played in their conference tournaments. They likely won’t exceed the projections above even in this case, since the projections include the expectation that they will indeed win the vast majority of these games. If they do win literally all of these games, they will end up as their conference champion and receive an automatic bid to the tournament.

On the flip side, a team needing an at-large bid does so because they failed to win their conference tournament. A loss in the conference tournament to a low-major or mid-major school not at the top of the conference certainly would not be expected, and would almost assuredly cause the team to fall short of its RPI projection. Translation: if a team in a 1-2 bid league’s RPI does not already have them in a good position for an at-large bid, they are unlikely to improve enough to garner serious consideration when factoring in at least 1 bad loss from now until Selection Sunday. This becomes more true the closer we get.

So how does a team improve it’s RPI? Play above expectations, play a much harder schedule than you have to date, and maybe eek out a win you’re not supposed to while beating everyone you’re supposed to. With all that in mind, I’ll end with a poll: