West Virginia picked up a big road win Monday by knocking off Iowa State 72-69. That moves the Mountaineers to 5-12 vs Quad 1 and 11-13 vs the top three quadrants. There is still work to do. Kansas State visits on Saturday in the regular season finale but the Mountaineers are no longer the last team in the field of 68, that honor now goes to Michigan.
Iowa State is in trouble now too after losing eight of its last ten games. The Cyclones have fallen to the middle of the bracket as a No. 8 seed, and may find themselves on the outside looking in if they cannot find a win somewhere. I have added them to the Bubble Watch, which is unusual this late in the season.
The news was also not good for Oklahoma State, which lost at home to Baylor 74-68. The Cowboys have now lost five in a drop to drop to 16-14 overall. No team has received an at-large bid with a worse record than two games above .500 in the thirty years I have been tracking data and only one team has received an at-large bid at two games over .500. In order to guarantee finishing two games above .500 and still be an at-large candidate, they need to win at Texas Tech on Saturday. OSU should not count on getting in with a record that poor though. As a result the Cowboys fell off the bracket and are now the first team out of the field of 68.
Tuesday's action gives a couple of teams chances at some big wins, while one tries to avoid disaster.
NCAA Tournament locks
Locks based on résumé: 20 | Bids secured: 0 | At-large spots remaining: 36
| Conference | Locks | Teams |
|---|---|---|
ACC | 2 | |
Big East | 3 | |
Big Ten | 2 | |
Big 12 | 4 | |
Pac-12 | 2 | |
SEC | 3 | |
1 | ||
Others | 3 |
On the cutline
| Last Four In | Record | NET |
|---|---|---|
| Mississippi State | 19-10 | 39 |
| Wisconsin | 16-12 | 72 |
| West Virginia | 17-13 | 23 |
| Michigan | 17-12 | 54 |
| First Four Out | Record | NET |
| Oklahoma State | 16-14 | 47 |
| Penn State | 17-12 | 59 |
| North Carolina | 19-11 | 45 |
| Arizona State | 20-9 | 61 |
| Next Four Out | Record | NET |
| New Mexico | 20-9 | 48 |
| Utah State | 22-7 | 30 |
| Clemson | 21-8 | 60 |
| Oregon | 16-13 | 53 |
Check out all the teams on Palm's Bubble Watch, the field of the 68 and the entire bracket on the Bracketology hub
Bubble teams in action Tuesday
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| At Virginia, 7 p.m. | ACC Network, fuboTV (Try for free) – Clemson gets an opportunity at a Quad 1 win as it hits the road to take on Virginia. The Tigers need every Quad 1 win it can get in an effort to overcome the impact of a very poor schedule and four bad losses on their tournament resume. This is their last chance for such a win in the regular season. | |
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| Vs. South Carolina, 9 p.m. | SEC Network, fuboTV (Try for free) – Mississippi State does not have a great record against the better teams it has played, but the Bulldogs will have to wait to try to fix that problem. Tuesday's game is all about avoiding adding the worst loss of the season to their borderline tournament resume. | |
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| Vs. San Diego State, 9 p.m. | CBS Sports Network (Channel finder | CBSSports.com | CBS Sports App) – Boise State is looking to continue its trend of splitting the season series with the other Mountain West contenders home-and-home. The Broncos have been very good on their home floor this season, losing only the season opener to South Dakota State. The Aztecs pounded them in San Diego earlier this season. A win would be the Broncos' best of the season so far. | |
All references to NCAA Tournament selection records and trends refer only to tournaments going back to 1994 with the exception of 2021. Due to shortened schedules and a relatively small number of nonconference games in 2021, those rankings were not reliable enough to be considered.
