Well, we’re about down to it at this point. By this time on Sunday, we’ll probably be in the range of about 80 teams still “alive” for the national title as we await the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to show us the product of all its work. For the time being, Friday’s wall-to-wall action gave us 27 more eliminations from the Circle of March, leaving us with 93 teams holding out hope as we head into Championship Saturday. That’s right, no fewer than 14 conference championships will come down today, from leagues as divergent as the WAC and MEAC to the Big East and Pac-12. Let’s enjoy it all, shall we?

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.14.14)

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Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is Rush the Court’s resident bracketologist. He will update his brackets at least twice a week through the rest of the regular season here at RTC, but his updated brackets can be viewed daily at Bracketology Expert. As we approach March Madness, he’ll also provide occasional blind resumes. Evans has been ranked by the Bracket Matrix as the nation’s 11th-best bracketologist out of hundreds of entries.

Here’s what changed on Thursday:

• After big wins Thursday, I have moved both Colorado and Stanford into lock status.  That brings us to 37 total locks, meaning we are running out of spots for bubble teams in a hurry.
• Iowa better be glad it doesn’t have another game to play. Another bad loss to a team like Northwestern and I think the Hawkeyes might have been sitting out this dance. Instead, Iowa is likely to be a #10 or #11 seed on Selection Sunday.
• Wisconsin is back on the No. 1 line after Villanova’s loss Thursday. The Badgers will likely only stay there if they win the Big Ten Tournament, though.

The NCAA Tournament Picture (full bracket after the jump)

• NCAA Tournament Locks (37): Arizona, Florida, Syracuse, Wisconsin, Kansas, Duke, Villanova, Virginia, Creighton, Michigan, San Diego State, Iowa State, Michigan State, Louisville, North Carolina, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, UCLA, Texas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Kansas State, Vcu, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio State, George Washington, Memphis, Arizona State, New Mexico, Oregon, Baylor, SMU, Oklahoma State, Colorado, Stanford
• Clinched NCAA Tournament Auto-Bids (13): Harvard (Ivy), Eastern Kentucky (OVC), Wichita State (MVC), Mercer (ASUN), Coastal Carolina (Big South), Manhattan (MAAC), Wofford (SOCON), Milwaukee (Horizon), Mount St. Mary’s (NEC), North Dakota State (Summit), Gonzaga (WCC), Delaware (CAA), American (Patriot)

Bracket Math

How many spots are still available for bubble teams hoping to win their way into the NCAA Tournament? Let’s break it down with a little bit of simple math.

I have 37 locks above, but when you consider nine conferences figure to have at least three bids or more (American, ACC, A-10, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Mountain West, Pac-12, SEC) it’s fair to assume that in MOST — if not all — of those leagues, the automatic bid will also come from an already “locked in” team. Therefore, we subtract nine from 37, which leaves us with 28 “true locks”. Add in the 32 automatic bids awarded to teams that win their conference tournament (which is where the nine conference champs we discounted a second ago will end up) and you’ve got a total of 60 locks. 

Since 68 teams make the NCAA Tournament, that leaves us with 8 spots remaining for bubble teams. Now, let’s take a look at the bubble:

Projected Bubble Spots Left: 8

• Probably In (3): Nebraska, Saint Joseph’s, Dayton
• Bubble In (5):  Xavier, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Tennessee, BYU
• Bubble Out: Arkansas,  Providence, California, Green Bay, Florida State, St. John’s, Belmont, Missouri

Potential Bid Thieves Left: 20

• American (1): Houston
• ACC (3): N. C. State, Florida State, Georgia Tech
• A-10 (4): Dayton, St. Joseph’s, Richmond, St. Bonaventure
• Big East (3): Xavier, Seton Hall, Providence
• Big Ten (3): Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern
• Mountain West (2): UNLV, Boise State
• SEC (6): Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, LSU, Ole Miss,  South Carolina

The Projected NCAA Tournament Field (March 14, 2014 at 10:39 AM CT)

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What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Nick Fasulo (@nickfasuloSBN) is your weekly host.

The Creighton Globetrotters

The assist of the century may have also been my tweet of the year. Try and wrap your mind around this botched pass turned three-pointer from the Bluejays.

ASSIST OF THE CENTURY RT @nickfasuloSBN Almost looks like an illusion. https://t.co/kpUufeuxTI

— SB Nation (@SBNation) March 14, 2014

Russ Smith Tribute

The lovable Russ Smith’s college career is waning, which is really sad. Watch this tribute video over and over and remember just how awesome this kid is.

Georgetown Is Really Struggling

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What a day. We knew it was coming, but sitting through the Championship Fortnight Thursday bloodbath is always a bit more difficult that it first seems. Keeping track of some 60 elimination games scattered throughout 19 different tournament sites is quite the challenge, but one that ultimately proves rewarding with all the great match-ups that were produced for today. As it turned out, there were no championships yesterday, but a total of 48 teams were eliminated from the Circle of March on Thursday. Note that bubble teams won’t drop off until they’re officially eliminated by the Selection Committee on Sunday evening. That leaves us with 120 teams still alive. Three more days to 68. Shall we?

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.13.14)

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1. The coaching carousel continues to turn with most of the movement off of it. The latest departure is Ben Braun, who was fired after six seasons at Rice. As it appears to be the trend these days Braun officially “stepped down”, but when you go 63-128 you don’t really step down as much as the school lets you save face especially when the biggest story of your tenure was about accusations of your athletic director making racially insensitive comments towards your players and an assistant coach that were reportedly ignored by you and your staff. Braun’s time at Rice might not have been that successful, but he does have 613 career wins (465 at the Division I level) and made it to two Sweet 16s so he will probably end up being an assistant in the not too distant future.
2. One job that apparently will not be opening up is Boston College as they have reportedly decided to stick with Steve Donahue. Given Donahue’s 54-76 record it would not have been shocking to see Boston College move in a different direction, but it is somewhat refreshing to see a school give a coach a little more time to work things out particularly at an ACC school. Having said that Boston College was one of the most disappointing teams in the country this year going 8-24 despite having a roster that most would consider competitive to at least be in the middle of the ACC standings. Donahue should expect to have most of his rotation back for next season so perhaps the school is giving him one more season to show some improvement before they decide to move on.
3. It seems like we are dealing with a lot of cases where schools attempt to dismiss a student-athlete only to have the student fight back. One of the most notable involves Dez Wells, who was dismissed from Xavier only to end up at Maryland and play right away thanks to a NCAA waiver. In addition to obtaining that waiver Wells also sued the school for his dismissal claiming that they ignored the evidence the prosecutor provided. Xavier tried to have the suit dismissed, but on Tuesday a federal judge refused Xavier’s motion to dismiss the case. The judge also denied Wells’ request to have his appeal overturned, but it appears that Wells will get his day in court against the school.
4. If you are looking for a potential cult figure to latch on to for the NCAA Tournament you could do a lot worse than Ethan Wragge. You probably know Wragge from his tendency to shoot and make ridiculously deep three-point attempts. You may have seen his performance against Villanova or if you are a regular reader of this column you have probably seen Luke Winn’s shot charts for Wragge. When you combine that with how great of a college player his mother was you have the potential for a frequently mentioned story in March particularly if Wragge (and some guy named McDermott) can lead the Bluejays deep in the NCAA Tournament.
5. We get hear plenty of stories during March. Usually they are inspirational, but sometimes they are just dumb. The one involving a deluded Kentucky fan who got a tattoo “2014 Nati9nal Champions UK” definitely falls into the latter camp. Doing this in the preseason would have been a little presumptuous, but the fan got the tattoo yesterday. The ridiculousness of doing that might be the primary focus of this story, but our favorite part has to be the tattoo artist, who asked that his now nationally (in)famous tattoo not be attributed to him and instead asked to not be named.

Brian Otskey will be reporting from the Big East Tournament all week.

Three key takeaways from Seton Hall’s dramatic Big East Quarterfinal upset of Villanova.

1. Villanova’s chances at a top seed took a major hit. Seton Hall isn’t a terrible team but because of some bad losses and a weak non-conference schedule, its RPI is well outside of the top 100. This is only Villanova’s fourth loss of the season, but it means that it won’t be playing any more games until next week after the brackets are announced. The Wildcats are light on big-time wins so their resume will be looked at with more scrutiny after this loss. The general consensus was that Villanova would earn a No. 1 seed with a Big East Tournament title or even just a trip to the championship game, but that won’t happen now and Villanova’s chances of getting the final top seed are significantly lower.
2. Seton Hall played with a ton of confidence. After surviving a Butler team that beat them twice, the Pirates played with nothing to lose and gave it everything they had today. For a hard-luck team, it finally paid off. Coming into this tournament, Seton Hall had lost an astounding six games either by one point or in overtime. In two games at Madison Square Garden, Kevin Willard’s team has flipped the script with two one-point victories and one massive upset. This win against Villanova, ranked third in the AP Top 25, was Seton Hall’s first ever top-three win in program history. The Pirates had previously been 0-30 against the top three of the AP poll before this afternoon’s win.
3. Free throw shooting cost Villanova the game, but points off turnovers nearly won it for the Wildcats. Villanova shot 15-of-25 (60 percent) from the charity stripe this afternoon with JayVaughn Pinkston in particular having a very rough game (3-of-10). For as much as free throws eventually wound up costing the Wildcats the game, disrupting Seton Hall’s offense and creating live ball turnovers. Villanova turned those into quick points with most of them coming during a 16-0 run that allowed the Wildcats to turn a 13-point deficit into a three-point lead, a run that seemed to take the air out of Seton Hall’s upset bid at the time. Villanova’s pressure bothered the Pirates for most of the second half, forcing them into wasted possessions and bad shots. However, the free throw struggles proved insurmountable for Villanova.

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Jameson Fleming is an RTC columnist who also works for CBSSports.com as the site’s social media editor. You can follow him on Twitter @JamesonFleming.

Picking a 10th player to fill out the National Player of the Year rankings was agonizingly hard. There were so many tremendous options like rankings stalwart Tyler Ennis, who finally fell out of the Top 10 thanks to his poor play during Syracuse’s struggles. Then there’s Bryce Cotton and T.J. Warren. Providence is closer to the NCAA Tournament than North Carolina State, but both stars have had incredible seasons. Cotton is averaging more than 40 MINUTES per game and is single-handedly willing the Friars to the Big Dance. Warren has been nothing short of spectacular for the Wolfpack. While he won ACC Player of the Year, on a national scale his team’s lack of success kept him out of these rankings. There’s also Marcus Smart, who turned in an impressive five-game stretch to put Oklahoma State back into the Tournament picture comfortably. His fellow Big 12 stud Melvin Ejim took home the league’s Player of the Year honors. Kyle Anderson has had a Shabazz Napier-like season for the Bruins, except he did it as a 6’9″ point guard.

Doug McDermott proved time and time again that he was the premier standout this season. (AP)

Player of the Year

10. Marcus Paige – North Carolina. Last Week: Not Ranked
2013-14 stats: 17.1 PPG, 4.5 APG, 120.6 ORtg

After a long absence from the Top 10, North Carolina’s Marcus Paige finally returns thanks to dominant play in the ACC. Before losing to Duke in the regular season finale, UNC had won 12 consecutive games thanks to Paige’s leadership. During the last 13 outings, Paige has averaged 17.6 points per game. Even when he’s not scoring, the Tar Heels’ sophomore impacts the game as a passer, but also a defender. Against Notre Dame, Paige shut the door on an upset attempt by blocking a last-second layup at the end of regulation.

9. Andrew Wiggins – Kansas. Last Week: 8
2013-14 stats: 16.8 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 113.9 ORtg

All season long, fans have been waiting for Andrew Wiggins to explode and have a Kevin Durant-like game. The Kansas freshman finally delivered in a loss at West Virginia without Joel Embiid. Wiggins dropped an efficient 41 points to give scouts a signature performance and a chance to remember why he should be the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. His shot chart from that game is a thing of beauty.

Shot chart via CBSSports.com

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Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is Rush the Court’s resident bracketologist. He will update his brackets at least twice a week through the rest of the regular season here at RTC, but his updated brackets can be viewed daily at Bracketology Expert. As we approach March Madness, he’ll also provide occasional blind resumes. Evans has been ranked by the Bracket Matrix as the nation’s 11th-best bracketologist out of hundreds of entries.

Thursday is typically the busiest day of championship week because we get to find out which “bid thieves” are going to possibly throw a wrench into the hopes of the nation’s nervous bubble teams. Not a lot has changed so far this week, but here’s what has.

• Georgetown is done after losing to DePaul on Thursday night. The Hoyas inexplicably blew a chance to play Creighton and what was likely a way to win their way into the Tournament. Now, Georgetown is NIT-bound.
• Stanford saved its season by coming from behind to defeat Washington State in the last game of the day Wednesday night. The Cardinal are likely going to get in and will have a chance to cement their standing today against Arizona State.
• BYU‘s situation has changed a lot in the last few days. First, the Cougars lost to Gonzaga in the WCC Tournament; then, news broke that Kyle Collinsworth is out for the season with an ACL injury. Yes, this will impact the Cougars’ chances of getting into the NCAA Tournament and, yes, it is a unique situation. Unlike Kansas, which will get a chance to show it is still a Tournament-worthy team without big man Joel Embiid, the Cougars won’t have that opportunity. Because of the timing of the injury, the committee won’t be able to see how good BYU is without Collinsworth and instead will have to completely ignore it when they make their selection this weekend. Or at least that is what (from my understanding) they are supposed to do. We are all human, so I wonder if the committee will be able to ignore Collinsworth’s injury in their analysis. Considering he averages 14.0 PPG and 8.1 RPG this season, that’s a substantial piece of their offensive attack. I’m guessing the Cougars are going to be out.
• The CIT field is starting to come together. A total of 16 teams have now accepted bids (see below the bracket for more details).
• There are no changes to the bracket below, at least not yet. Today there will be some movement.

The NCAA Tournament Picture (full bracket below after the jump)

• NCAA Tournament Locks (35): Arizona, Florida, Syracuse, Wisconsin, Kansas, Duke, Villanova, Virginia, Creighton, Michigan, San Diego State, Iowa State, Michigan State, Louisville, North Carolina, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, UCLA, Texas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Kansas State, VCU, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio State, George Washington, Memphis, Arizona State, New Mexico, Oregon, Baylor, SMU, Oklahoma State
• Clinched NCAA Tournament Auto-Bids (13): Harvard (Ivy), Eastern Kentucky (OVC), Wichita State (MVC), Mercer (ASUN), Coastal Carolina (Big South), Manhattan (MAAC), Wofford (SOCON), Milwaukee (Horizon), Mount St. Mary’s (NEC), North Dakota State (Summit), Gonzaga (WCC), Delaware (CAA), American (Patriot)

Bracket Math

How many spots are still available for bubble teams hoping to win their way into the NCAA Tournament? Let’s break it down with a little bit of simple math.

I have 35 locks above, but when you consider nine conferences figure to have at least three bids or more (American, ACC, A-10, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Mountain West, Pac 12, SEC) it’s fair to assume that in MOST — if not all — of those leagues, the automatic bid will also come from an already “locked in” team. Therefore, we subtract nine from 35, which leaves us with 26 “true locks”. Add in the 32 automatic bids awarded to teams that win their conference tournament (which is where the nine conference champs we discounted a second ago will end up) and you’ve got a total of 58 locks. 

Since 68 teams make the NCAA Tournament, that leaves us with 10 spots remaining for bubble teams. Now, let’s take a look at the bubble:

Projected Bubble Spots Left: 10

• Bubble In (10): Colorado, Stanford, Nebraska, Saint Joseph’s, Dayton, Xavier, California, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Tennessee
• Bubble Out: BYU, Arkansas,  Providence, Green Bay, Florida State, St. John’s, Belmont, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia

Potential Bid Thieves Left: 44

• American (3): Houston, Rutgers, UCF
• ACC (5): Clemson, N. C. State, Florida State, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech
• A-10 (7): Dayton, St. Joseph’s, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, Rhode Island, Duquesne,  Fordham
• Big East (6): St. John’s, Xavier, Marquette, Seton Hall, DePaul, Providence
• Big 12 (1): West Virginia
• Big Ten (5): Minnesota, Illinois, Penn State, Northwestern, Purdue
• Mountain West (6): UNLV, Nevada, Boise State, Wyoming, Fresno State, Utah State
• Pac 12 (1): Utah
• SEC (10): Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi State

The Projected NCAA Tournament Field (March 13, 2014 at 10:16 AM CT)

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As we move through Championship Week, we’ll continue to bring you short reviews of each of the automatic qualifiers to help you fill out your bracket next week. There’s a brief respite in the auto-bid collection coming before the weekend, but one more automatic berth was earned on Wednesday night. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent bid winner.

American

American Seized The Patriot League Title In Emphatic Fashion Wednesday Night. Get Your Dancing Shoes Ready, Eagles!

• Patriot League Champion (20-12, 16-5)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #135/#100/#125
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +3.9
• Likely NCAA Seed: #14-#15

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

1. American’s victory over Boston University in the Patriot League title game should count as a mild upset, but some might argue that the league’s best team will now be playing in the NCAA Tournament. The Terriers won the regular season title by two games and have a sterling RPI figure of 82, but American is a full 35 slots ahead of BU in Ken Pom’s efficiency ratings. Either would have been one of the better Patriot League representatives in recent years, but in holding BU to just 36 points, it was American and their shutdown defense (49^th nationally in defensive efficiency) that carried the day in Boston. Read the rest of this entry »

With many of the power conference league tournaments starting yesterday, the Circle of March took a 30-team hit over the last 24 hours. Every team that lost on Wednesday was clinging to the unlikely notion of making a run to a conference title for entry into the NCAA Tournament, but it wasn’t to be. There was, however, one team that won its automatic bid — American University, from the Patriot League. Heading into what will be a ginormous Thursday of action, there are now 168 teams remaining, which means a couple of things. First, we’ve blown through the 50 percent mark, with 172 of the 340 previously-eligible teams now eliminated. Second, over the course of the next four days, a hundred more teams will drop off that list. With 60 tournament games scheduled today, nearly half of those could drop off over the next 16 hours. Enjoy today’s marathon of games!

 Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.12.14)

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