The Big List - March 1st, 2010

March is here! That means March Madness, the NCAA Tournament, will shortly be upon us. Conference tournaments for smaller conferences will be starting up soon, with power conferences still having one week of games on their schedule before conference tournaments. Lots of jockeying for conference and NCAA tournament position is about to take place over the next week. In response to that, I introduce The Big List, or my version of a bubble watch/bracketology.

My Reasoning:

Most places that do a bracket make assumptions about which teams will get auto bids and which won't. Most mention their last four in, last four out, and next four out, which is fine, but it's still difficult to get a feel for where teams stand in relation to one another since it's not easy to tell how hard of a bubble they have projected (by hardness of a bubble, I mean how many auto bids are up for grabs. Let me explain. Several mid-major schools will get bids to the tournament whether or not they win their conference tournament. This means if they don't win their conference tournament, some other team will get the auto-bid and they will "steal" an at-large. A soft bubble assumes all these teams get auto bids and therefore, the maximum number of at-large bids will be available. Sort of). So I am instead including a list, beginning with my "Power 16", or top 16 ranked teams, the rest of the locks, and the bubble pecking order as I see it. I will at the end give a summary of how many bids are available in the event of both a soft and hard bubble so you get an idea of where the cut-off line may fall. Maybe I should just give an example.

BIG LIST: March 1st

Power 16:

1. Syracuse

2. Kansas

3. Kentucky

4. Duke

5. Kansas State

6. West Virginia

7. Purdue

8. Ohio State

9. Villanova

10. New Mexico

11. Temple

12. Georgetown

13. Tennessee

14. BYU

15. Michigan State

16. Butler

Other Locks (in no particular order):

Maryland

Pitt

Missouri

Baylor

Texas A&M

Texas

Oklahoma State

Wisconsin

Vanderbilt

Xavier

Gonzaga

UTEP

Northern Iowa

Bubble Order:

Richmond

UNLV
Clemson

Florida State

Cornell

Louisville

Marquette

Georgia Tech

Wake Forest

Illinois

Florida

UConn

Notre Dame

Cal

Old Dominion

UAB

San Diego State

Cincinnati

St. Mary's

Mississippi State

South Florida

Ole Miss

Seton Hall

Dayton

Memphis

Charlotte

Rhode Island

At-Large Bids available = 34

Locks = 29

Conferences Spanned = 11

Conferences with more than 2 locks = 5

Projected "Soft Bubble" spots = 16

Projected "Hard Bubble" spots = 10

Here's how this works. The "Soft Bubble" estimate says how many spots are available from the bubble group if every auto bid from the conferences spanned in the locks section comes from the locks section. In other words, if every Gonzaga, Butler, etc. wins their conference tournament. The "Hard Bubble" assumes the conference tournaments from any conference with 2 or less locks will come from outside the locks groups. Obviously, these are two extreme scenarios, but the idea is to say that there are, in my eyes, anywhere from 10 to 16 at-large spots available, taking out locks.

You will notice there are teams from additional conferences in the bubble section. These teams are there for now but will be removed if and when they win their conference tournament. For example, Cornell is in the bubble mix but has a 2 game lead in the Ivy League with 2 games to go, so if they win either on Friday @ Brown or Saturday @ Yale, they clinch the Ivy League and its auto-bid, so they will be removed and placed in the locks group. Until then, these teams in my opinion should be considered in the bubble mix. Also, keep in mind this is if the season ended today. This is important because, obviously, if Old Dominion doesn't win the Colonial tourney, that will likely take them down a notch no matter who they lose to. It's my take on a bubble watch, and I feel it's an interesting and new way to look at things.