Triple Option

This list will be updated weekly with the bracket projections to “lock” more teams into the the tournament. My definition of a lock is that if you’re a fan of this team, you can pay closer attention to the regional locations and look at tickets. “Safe” means that at this point of the season, it would take an epic collapse to miss the tournament. These are your teams that have had a cold stretch, don’t have a great conference record, weaker strength of record, lost to Eastern Illinois, etc. “Bubble” means I have no idea. For those guys every game is important. Remember this particular topic has nothing to do with the actual tournament. North Carolina spent most of the season on the bubble last year, as did UCLA the year prior, so pick your year and team, and the regular season is only a rough estimator of a team’s championship ability.

My schedule is to every week, add a seed line (4 teams) to the lock list, starting with 16 (1-4 seeds). So next week, 5-seeds are considered locks, then the week after 6-seeds, and so on until conference tournaments start, at which point bid-stealers and last minute at-large campaigns enter the fray, so everything becomes much more subjective. Also seeds 5-8 are categorized as safe for now, but this category is not binding, as my lock designation will be.

Several college basketball analysts have their own spins on the bubble/lock analysis, so this initial post is just to establish a starting point, and it will eventually focus on comparing potential bubble teams and figuring out which ones will get selected.

Big Ten

Lock: Illinois, Indiana, Purdue

Safe: Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Rutgers

Bubble: Northwestern, Penn State, Wisconsin

Big East

Lock: Marquette, UConn, Xavier

Safe: Creighton, Providence

Bubble: Seton Hall

ACC

Lock: Miami, Virginia

Safe: Duke, NC State, Pitt

Bubble: Clemson, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech

SEC

Lock: Alabama, Tennessee

Safe: Auburn, Arkansas, Missouri

Bubble: Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Texas A&M

PAC 12 

Lock: Arizona, UCLA

Safe: None

Bubble: Arizona State, Utah, USC

Big 12

Lock: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas

Safe: TCU

Bubble: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, West Virginia

Mountain West

Lock: None

Safe: San Diego State

Bubble: Boise State, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah State

WCC

Lock: Gonzaga, St. Mary’s 

Safe: None

Bubble: None

AAC

Lock: Houston

Safe: None

Bubble: Memphis, Tulane

C-USA

Lock: None

Safe: FAU

Bubble: North Texas, UAB

A10

Lock: None

Safe: None

Bubble: VCU

CAA

Lock: None

Safe: None

Bubble: Charleston