A Look at the Bubble

It's that time of the year again. February. The stretch run of college basketball is set to begin. For the next five-plus weeks, we are all going to hear non-stop discussion about RPIs, quality wins, and most importantly, the bubble. With the release of our first full weekly bracket on Monday, and our complete weekly "Bubble Watch" coming next Thursday (with breakdowns and analysis of all the bubble teams), it would be a good time to get people acquainted and familiar with who is in the running this season. Even if someone followed college basketball pretty closely, they might not know who's in, who's out, and who still has work left to do. This should help.

Let's look at the landscape conference-by-conference (for the bubble, it includes all teams that have even an outside shot at a bid, just not to leave anyone out; the complete Bubble Watch won't have all these teams):

ACC

Locks: Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Clemson

Looking Good: Florida State
Work Left to Do: Boston College, Virginia Tech, Miami (Fl.), Maryland

Big East

Locks: Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Marquette

Looking Good: Syracuse, West Virginia, Villanova
Work Left to Do: Georgetown, Notre Dame, Providence, Cincinnati

Big Ten

Locks: Michigan State
Looking Good: Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue, Ohio State

Work Left to Do: Penn State, Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin

Big 12

Locks: Oklahoma

Looking Good: Texas, Kansas, Missouri

Work Left to Do: Baylor, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Pac-10

Locks: NONE

Looking Good: Washington, UCLA, Arizona State

Work Left to Do: California, USC, Arizona, Washington State, Stanford

SEC

Locks: NONE

Looking Good: NONE

Work Left to Do: Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, LSU, Kentucky, Mississippi State

Atlantic-10

Locks: Xavier

Work Left to Do: Dayton, Saint Joseph’s, Temple

Conference-USA
Locks: Memphis
Work Left to Do: UAB, Tulsa

Mountain West

Locks: NONE

Work Left to Do: UNLV, Utah, BYU, San Diego State

West Coast

Locks: Gonzaga

Work Left to Do: Saint Mary’s

Horizon

Locks: Butler

Work Left to Do: NONE

MAAC
Locks: NONE
Work Left to Do: Siena

Missouri Valley

Locks: NONE

Work Left to Do: Northern Iowa, Illinois State

Southern
Locks: NONE

Looking Good: Davidson

WAC

Locks: NONE

Work Left to Do: Utah State

One-Bid Conferences

America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Ivy, Mid-American, MEAC, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, SWAC, Southland, Summit, Sun Belt