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Hunting For NCAA Teams -- Locks and Bubbles

By Mel Greenberg

So here is the way things look as of Thursday, Selection Night-Minus Four and Counting.

The Locks

For the purpose of this exercise I am going to assume Oklahoma wins the automatic from the Big 12 and keep them off the list but will adjust if the Sooners get upset along the way, though it probably will mean just a trade with one of the lock teams if an upset occurs.

The same goes for Stanford in the Pac-10 for now.

TCU got a little dicey with its upset loss to UNLV in the Mountain West as far as being a lock.

Some teams in the bubble group could get quickly taken but the Guru thinks those on that list didn't get the required advanced votes to get automatically in the at-large group at the outset.

As we were told during the mock bracket sessions, even though some teams get voted into the field from the get-go it doesn't mean they will hold their spots through the meetings.

So, far the one place where an unpredicted team crashed the projection party was in the Atlantic Ten with Charlotte prevailing and Xavier put on the at-large list, taking perhaps one of the spots a bubble team could have grabbed. There are only four other places where one-bid wrong winners could cause problems and that will be addressed in the bubble field. There are some teams in the bubble group that will be inserted because others are noting them so they will be placed for comparisons.

Though many are not high on the Big Ten this season, it looks like three teams will survive to become at-large picks and they are being made locks. The Guru is not real high on Michigan State, but for the moment, is voting the Spartans into the group

Here are the seemingly solid picks.

Florida State
Duke
North Carolina
Virginia
Xavier
Baylor
Texas A&M
Iowa State
Kansas State
Texas
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Notre Dame
Villanova
Rutgers
DePaul
Purdue
Iowa
Michigan State
San Diego State
California
Arizona State
Auburn
Florida
Tennessee
LSU

This totals 26, meaning we need 7 more and here's the shopping list with some comparisons but in no rank order. A combination of Real-Time RPI and CollegeRPI from Wednesday's report is being used.(Apparently the formatting didn't quite make it off the cut-and-paste but it's still discernible.

The Bubble Group

Team Record RPI NCNF SOS T25 Top50 Last 10
Georgia Tech 21-9 34 35 48 2-6 3-7 6-4
Boston College 20-11 40 50 30 0-8 2-8 3-7
Temple 21-9 30 27 28 0-4 4-6 8-2
Richmond 23-9 45 32 73 0-1 1-5 7-3
South Florida 22-10 47 59 64 1-6 5-6 6-4
Indiana 19-10 51 25 67 0-3 3-7 4-6
Minnesota 19-11 53 37 58 1-3 5-8 5-5
TCU 20-10* 39 38 56 2-1 3-3 8-2
Utah 19-9 63 137 93 0-2 2-7 7-3
New Mexico *22-9 74 42 118 0-2 3-5 5-5
UCLA 18-11 68 40 72 1-6 1-7 4-6
Mississippi St. 22-9 42 60 66 2-6 3-7 6-4
Georgia 18-13 52 97 31 2-6 4-10 4-6

*-Record includes Wednesday's game
The above group consists of 13 meaning you have to cut six Possibly it would be five if one of the three Mountain West teams prevail as automatic bid winners.

Additionally but without data here are three other teams who could enter the list if they don't win conferences so the above group will be cheering for them this weekend.

Colonial – Va. Commonwealth
Mid-American -- Bowling Green
Horizon – Wisconsin-Green Bay

-- Mel