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Updated alphabetical cheat sheet I'll edit this post during the day as these final results come through - hopefully this makes it easier to follow along as the 68 teams are unveiled alphabetically. If you're looking for an early sign about NU's hopes as they unveil the teams alphabetically, I'd say keep a close eye on the following four teams, which will appear in the first 1/4 of teams unveiled: Alabama - First out of the gate - One of the 5 shakiest "lock" teams - I think they're in, but if they're left out, great sign for NU Arizona State - First bubble team - I think they're out, but it's 50/50 Baylor - Second bubble team, and a bit of a long shot - if they're in, a bad bad bad bad sign for NU Florida State - One of the 5 shakiest "lock" teams, so if they're left out, a great sign for NU If all 4 of these teams are in, my feeling of 30% NU in drops to 5% NU in. If they're all in, the committee isn't buying what NU's resume is selling. If just 1 of these 4 teams are in, I'm going to feel a lot more positive. It means the committee is not relying on the Quads as much as the bracketologist nerds thought. If it's 2 or 3 of these 4 in, I don't think our chances change much, but obviously 2 in would be far better than 3 in. I'd say the other (now) three shaky "lock" teams would be Nevada, Rhode Island, and USC, but they'll be announced after we are, so no help there. KEY: Green and Bold = Automatic Bid (with games to be played today, favorite is listed first) Blue and Italic = Likely At-Large (31 teams) Red and Underlined = Bubble teams (5 spots available) Alabama Arizona Arizona State Arkansas Auburn Baylor Bucknell Buffalo Butler Cal State Fullerton Charleston Cincinnati Clemson Creighton Davidson Duke Florida Florida State Georgia State Gonzaga Houston Iona Kansas Kansas State Kentucky Lipscomb LIU Brooklyn Louisville Loyola-Chicago Marquette Marshall Maryland-Baltimore County Miami Michigan Michigan State Middle Tennessee Missouri Montana Murray State Nebraska Nevada New Mexico State North Carolina North Carolina Central North Carolina State North Carolina-Greensboro Notre Dame Ohio State Oklahoma Oklahoma State Oregon Penn Providence Purdue Radford Rhode Island San Diego State Seton Hall South Dakota State Southern California St. Bonaventure St. Mary’s Stephen F Austin Syracuse Tennessee Texas Texas A&M Texas Christian Texas Southern Texas Tech UCLA (USC listed above as Southern Cal) Utah Villanova Virginia Virginia Tech West Virginia Wichita State Wright State Xavier

Nice! Need a big guard next season, especially on the defensive end. Love the potential of kid like this who's used to winning and has been around great players. Given a chance to let his game come to the forefront, rather than deferring, he may turn into something really special.

I'll give Tennessee credit - they looked like an easy Sweet 16 team today. The rest of them during this week, not so much.

I think they'll have two brackets - one if Davidson wins and one if URI wins. Otherwise they'll have everything basically done tonight. I think St Bony is definitely out if Davidson wins - that league doesn't deserve 3. (And I know the committee says it doesn't do that, handing out X number of bids per league ... but it does.) If URI wins, St Bony is a question mark like the rest of us. So St Bony really needed that one today.

Davidson wins by 12 - St Bony gets to sweat it out Sunday with the rest of us.

Davidson's first 2-pt attempt at 6:35 mark ... and of course they miss a layup. I hate the A-10.

Davidson is attempting its first FT at the 9:00 mark ... after a flagrant foul was called at half court. Still no 2-pt FG attempts. It's like they're pretending that the area inside the 3-pt line is made of lava. And they lead 22-15.

Is the A-10 a good league? Or is it a 40-and-over-YMCA-pickup-game type of league? Davidson has not attempted a 2-pt FG or a FT through the first 8+ minutes ... and leads St Bony 12-11. The two teams combined have made 1 2-pt FG. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

Things turning around finally! Cincy & URI are on huge runs and both have the lead with 7-ish minutes to go

Exactly - they can be "realistic" without being as completely negative as they were. I mean how hard is it to say, "I know the metrics aren't in their favor necessarily, but this has the look of a tournament team with the athleticism and toughness to do some damage." You listen to how the studio hosts and color announcers at ESPN, FS1, etc are handling bubble teams in the games they're broadcasting this week, and it's a far different tone than what BTN had last week. Hell, Tom Crean gave us more props with his "nope" than most of the studio hosts did last week. I mean they could've at least assigned one guy to be on our side and PSU's side, to start a fake argument with one guy on each side of the discussion. Standard sports talk formula. That would've been better than 3 "no way in hell"s and let's fill the rest of the halftime show talking about how great NYC and MSG are. And it wasn't just last week. It was the last month of the season with studio hosts saying we needed to win 9 in a row and then get to the tournament final. I don't know that a more positive tone would've helped, but it sure couldn't have hurt anything.

Alabama & Kentucky playing like this is a Thanksgiving weekend game in Hawaii where neither team wants to be in the gym. Just missing the coaches in Hawaiian shirts. I have not watched the SEC much this season - this league has been awful this week. Not impressed. EDIT: And Dickie V just said the SEC is the top league top to bottom in the country. Holy crap. I'm living in a crazy world.

Good point - it's not like there's no evidence, NU has some metrics in its favor. Not as many as others, but it's not a slam dunk that we're out either. But does the committee have the stones to put in a team like NU and then absorb all of the criticism from guys like Lunardi & Mandel? They'd have to also stand up to this idea that has been repeated over and over nationally until people just accept it that the Big Ten is basically the Mountain West this year. It's a lot easier for them to put in sub-500 Big XII and ACC teams from a PR standpoint. After all, no one wants the wrath of the Lunardi. Here's what I know after watching a bunch of these bubble teams this week -- I'm not sure any of them do better than 13-5 playing NU's B1G schedule, and most do worse. None of them would've won at Purdue/MSU/OSU, especially as well as Purdue & MSU were playing when we played them. And as up and down as these other bubble teams are, they don't likely go 13-2 against the rest of the schedule, especially with Minny at full strength the first time we played them. But, unfortunately, it's probably not going to matter.

Updated: NIT Automatic Qualifiers (lost in conference tournaments) Bethune-Cookman – MEAC (RPI 287) Canisius – MAAC (RPI 121) Fla Gulf Coast – Atlantic Sun (RPI 172) Hampton – MEAC (RPI 230) Louisiana – Sun Belt (RPI 53) Mid Tenn St – Conf USA (RPI 34 - on NCAA bubble) N Kentucky – Horizon (RPI 115) Nicholls – Southland (RPI 144) Northeastern – Colonial (RPI 55) Rider – MAAC (RPI 66) Savannah St – MEAC (RPI 196) SE Louisiana – Southland (RPI 149) UC Davis – Big West UNC Asheville – Big South (RPI 128) Vermont – America East (RPI 51) Wagner – Northeast (RPI 109) ?? Arkansas-PB – SWAC (RPI 303) (APB finished 2nd to Grambling, but Grambling is not eligible for postseason play, so I'm not sure if APB becomes a potential NIT qualifier or if the SWAC just loses its potential slot) Potential NIT Automatic Qualifiers (still playing in conf tournaments) Harvard – Ivy Penn – Ivy

Yeah, but it's the NCAA so who knows? What they'll probably do is list all of the big public state schools as "University of _______" so there's 40 teams that start with "U" and make this list a piece of garbage.

ESPNU has an NIT selection show at 7:30 Central Sunday. I may tune in just to see where Penn State and Maryland end up.

Since the qualifiers are going to be read 1-68 in alphabetical order Sunday, here are the teams in alphabetical order still in contention. I'll update it again tomorrow to make it easier to follow along as the teams are announced, see which bubble teams may have been left out, if any at-large locks have been left out, etc. KEY: GREEN and BOLD = Automatic bids (Double slashes are tournaments still in progress - favorite listed first) BLUE and ITALIC = Likely At-Large bid locks RED and UNDERLINED = Bubble teams (I'm estimating there are 6 bubble spots remaining) Alabama Arizona // Southern California Arizona State Arkansas Arkansas-Pine Bluff // Texas Southern Auburn Baylor Bucknell Buffalo // Toledo Butler Charleston Cincinnati // Houston // Wichita St // Memphis Clemson Creighton Duke Florida Florida State Gonzaga Hampton // North Carolina Central Harvard // Penn // Yale // Cornell Houston Iona Kansas // West Virginia Kansas State Kentucky Lipscomb LIU Brooklyn Louisiana // Georgia State // Georgia Southern // Texas-Arlington Louisville Loyola-Chicago Marquette Miami Michigan Michigan St Middle Tennessee Missouri Montana // Eastern Washington Murray State Nebraska Nevada New Mexico // San Diego State New Mexico State // Grand Canyon North Carolina North Carolina State North Carolina-Greensboro Notre Dame Ohio State Oklahoma Oklahoma State Oregon Providence Purdue Radford Rhode Island // St. Bonaventure // Davidson // St. Joseph’s Seton Hall South Dakota State Southeastern Louisiana // Stephen F Austin Southern California St. Bonaventure St. Mary’s Syracuse Tennessee // Kentucky // Arkansas // Alabama Texas Texas A&M Texas Christian Texas Tech UC Davis // UC Irvine UCLA Utah Vermont // Maryland-Baltimore County Villanova // Providence Virginia // North Carolina Virginia Tech West Virginia Western Kentucky // Marshall Wichita State Wright State Xavier Just thought of something - will teams be listed alphabetically by abbreviations or by spelling out the name? Southern Cal fans may have a heart attack if they think their team will be listed alphabetically as Southern Cal and it appears they've been left out, but they're really listed alphabetically as USC and they'll just be announced later.

Updated after last night ---- I think we're up to 30 locks for the 36 at larges. Not good news. And even worse, I think UCLA is all but a lock at this point - taking Arizona to OT probably was enough to separate them from the rest of the bubble. And I think if St Bony wins today, they're almost certainly in - not a lock but probably 80-85%, unless St Joes steals the auto bid, then St Bony is back on the bubble. So in reality we may be down to 4 bubble bids for 14 teams if St Bony wins today. I suppose if Alabama just gets boat-raced today by Kentucky, they maybe could fall back to the bubble. Unlikely, but possible. --- But if the committee is picking NU because of how different it is from other teams, it may not matter how many bubble spots there are left, because our resume looks so much different than every other Power 5 team on the board. Still going to be tough though. Not feeling as hopeful today after Alabama won & Nevada lost ... and I was only at 30%-35% yesterday. I think today all the focus is on the A-10. We need St Bony to lose to Davidson, URI to beat St Joes. All the other bubble teams are done. Since the A-10 games are in the afternoon and Alabama-Ky is this afternoon, the committee will probably have its decisions made by tonight on the full field. There are no bid stealers left in any conference tournament, other than the A-10 - all of the P5 teams still playing are safely in (maybe other than Alabama). EDIT:: Sorry, forgot about Memphis in the AAC - they could steal a bid, as the other 3 semifinalists are safely in. Assumed Auto Bid Champions · Arizona · Cincinnati · Kansas · Michigan · Rhode Island · Tennessee · Virginia · Villanova At large locks 1. Alabama 2. Arkansas 3. Auburn 4. Butler 5. Clemson 6. Creighton 7. Duke 8. Florida 9. Florida St 10. Houston 11. Kansas St 12. Kentucky 13. Miami 14. Mich St 15. Missouri 16. N Carolina 17. NC State 18. Nevada 19. Ohio St 20. Providence 21. Purdue 22. Seton Hall 23. TCU 24. Tex A&M 25. Texas Tech 26. USC 27. Va Tech 28. W Virginia 29. Wichita 30. Xavier As far as potential bid stealers, Rhode Island would take an at large spot if it loses in its conference tournament. **Rhode Island (vs St Joes - semis) Bubble (6 spots left) 1. Arizona St – 20-11 2. Baylor – 18-14 3. Louisville – 20-13 4. Marquette – 19-13 5. Middle Tenn – 24-7 6. Nebraska – 22-10 7. Notre Dame – 20-14 8. Oklahoma – 18-13 9. Oklahoma St – 19-14 10. Oregon – 22-12 11. St Bonaventure (vs Davidson - semis) 12. St Mary’s – 28-5 13. Syracuse – 20-13 14. Texas – 19-14 15. UCLA – 21-11 16. Utah – 19-11

Rh Island will draw St Joes in the semis tomorrow - after St Joes just embarrassed them, their families, and their dogs at home on senior night last week. Should be interesting. And Kentucky looks like hot garbage. Fortunately, Georgia looks like hot garbage that's been laying out in the sun for about 3 years. UK by 10 early second half.

Yup, that's really our shot - the committee picks the team with the outlier resume, because everyone else looks so similar.

This is a good debate - I think their RPI is so high that they wouldn't be left out. But their resume is not overly impressive when you dig a little deeper. That's a team that gamed the RPI very well. And with a loss today, they wouldn't have finished strong at all. Losses to St Joes, Davidson and VCU late would be a huge problem. But I think we're better off with URI winning the tourney and St Bony losing early, rather than the other way around.

So always helps me to put pen to paper - maybe this will help others too. I think 27 teams are locks for the 36 at larges. Maybe it's more - teams like ASU & OU are considered locks by nearly all bracketologists, but I can't lock them in the way they finished the season. To me, these 27 are shoe-ins (of course, if one of them gets an auto bid, one of the teams I've assumed has an auto bid would swap places with them). Assumed Auto Bid Champions · Virginia · Villanova · Kansas · Cincinnati · Auburn · Michigan · Arizona At large locks 1. Arkansas 2. Butler 3. Clemson 4. Creighton 5. Duke 6. Florida 7. Florida St 8. Houston 9. Kansas St 10. Kentucky 11. Miami 12. Mich St 13. Missouri 14. N Carolina 15. NC State 16. Ohio St 17. Providence 18. Purdue 19. Seton Hall 20. TCU 21. Tennessee 22. Tex A&M 23. Texas Tech 24. Va Tech 25. W Virginia 26. Wichita 27. Xavier As far as potential bid stealers, Nevada and Rhode Island would take an at large spot if they lose in their conference tournaments. 1. **Nevada (vs San Diego St – semis) 2. **Rhode Island (vs VCU – quarters) So that leaves 9 at large spots (down to 7 if Nevada or URI lose). I've got 21 teams that have a shot at those at larges. Understand that some of these 21 are long shots - I just put in everyone that still has a heartbeat or a chance of playing their way into an at large. And some of these are probably "in" - like I said earlier, ASU & OU are locks in nearly every bracket out there, but I just can't do it yet. 1. Alabama (vs Auburn) 2. Arizona St – 20-11 3. Baylor – 18-14 4. Georgia (vs Kentucky) 5. Louisville – 20-13 6. Marquette – 19-13 7. Middle Tenn – 24-7 8. Mississippi St (vs Tenn) 9. Nebraska – 22-10 10. Notre Dame – 20-14 11. Oklahoma – 18-13 12. Oklahoma St – 19-14 13. Oregon (vs USC) 14. St Bonaventure (vs Richmond) 15. St Mary’s – 28-5 16. Syracuse – 20-13 17. Temple (vs Wichita St) 18. Texas – 19-14 19. UCLA (vs Arizona) 20. USC (vs Oregon) 21. Utah – 19-11 Teams with records by their names are done. Today's opponents are listed in parentheses. Georgia and Miss St probably need to reach the SEC final to be a serious at large threat. Losses today or tomorrow and they come off my list. Temple beating Wichita today would make them an at large threat. Same for Oregon beating USC today. And of course, we need URI and Nevada to win their leagues. If Alabama, UCLA, and/or USC win today, they move to the lock list .... at least my lock list. So that's not a lot of spots left unless games go our way today. If we get some bad results today, we could be down to 4-6 at large spots for these teams. It'd be really helpful if all of these bubble teams lost today (obviously Oregon/USC play each other). ---- You start looking at those Power 5 bubble teams, and your brain shuts down after a bit. They all look the same. That may be where NU's best chance lies - our resume doesn't look like the others. I didn't even look at them that long - the committee has to be going crazy spending several hours trying to order rank those teams. Perhaps the committee gets tired of trying to split hairs between OU/OSU/ND/ASU/Texas/Baylor/Syracuse/Marq/etc and just puts in the one that looks different. ----- Even if everything goes perfectly in the other games, I still think it'll be a surprise if our name is announced Sunday - maybe 30-35% shot. But if we can keep it at 7-8 bubble spots up for grabs heading into Sunday, who knows?

Why couldn't the Big East spring for a logo segment of the floor that matched the color of the rest of the floor? The center of the MSG floor looks like my dog marked his territory all over it.

I mean, we get it. We're probably not in. The majority of experts on our own network spent 3 days in NYC crushing us, after all, and if they don't have our backs, I don't know why Lunardi would. But he's going over the top for a reason.

Exactly - who is he talking to here? The committee? They certainly aren't listening, I would hope. And if he was trying to maintain any sense of credibility, he would hedge his bets at least a little bit, so he doesn't look like a bigger ass Sunday night if we somehow get in. It's easy enough to say, "I don't think they'll make it," list off a few stats and be done with it. And why get so worked up about a team that you say has no chance? Why waste so much time discussing them? Instead, he's making it personal. So he's 100% trolling NU fans. He knows we'll talk about him, respond to him, etc. He's trying to stir up eyeballs on the web site, more Twitter responses, etc. This is all a huge troll job. Wouldn't surprise me if he has something in his contract that X number of social media impressions equal a financial bonus for him. He may be right that we don't make it, but he's going over the top for a reason. I'm going to do my part and try to ignore him the rest of the week, and not give him the attention he wants. It'll be tough because that toupee is God awful. Almost like staring at a car crash, you just can't look away. But I'm going to try, dammit!

Those Germans absolutely get my loathing of the bluebirds.