North Carolina beat another ACC also-ran in
Florida State on Monday to stay afloat while waiting to get its shot at
Duke. The Tar Heels have Quad 3 and 4 conference games before that matchup with the Blue Devils. There are only three major conference teams that are Quad 4 opponents:
Boston College (home games only),
Miami and
Seton Hall (home and neutral).
Nebraska lost a rock fight 49-46 at home to
Michigan. That is not fatal for the Cornhuskers, but they have home games left with
Minnesota and
Iowa surrounding a trip to
Ohio State. The home games are pretty much "must win."There are six bubble teams in action Tuesday including two Big 12 teams and a conference leader.
Bubble teams in action Tuesday
Cincinnati
The margin for error for the Bearcats is almost gone. They have four regular season games left including two at home. The only game they can afford to lose is at
Houston. Good thing, because they probably will lose it anyway. They need quad 1 wins, especially over likely tournament teams and this is the only other chance Cincinnati has besides that game at Houston.
Georgia
Georgia needs wins of any kind right now. They are just 16-11 overall and 8-11 against the top three quadrants. A win here would be huge, of course, but a loss means their last three games (at Texas, at
South Carolina, vs.
Vanderbilt) are "must win."The new leaders of the Atlantic 10 take a bus across town to meet their city rivals. Richmond is having an uncharacteristically rough season so this is a quad 4 game for VCU. I don't think the Rams can afford to lose to anyone, but especially a Quad 4 team.
West Virginia needs to take care of business on its home floor against the Horned Frogs and
UCF to end the regular season. They have their
Utah trip in between, which figures to be a challenge. That is why the home games are so important.
This feels like a game Gonzaga should win, but they lost the first meeting at home to the Broncos 103-99. That is just one of a handful of surprising results involving the Bulldogs this season. A win for Gonzaga would be their fourth best of the campaign.
The Aztecs are probably celebrating Houston's clinching of the Big 12 title on Monday because their win over the Cougars is by far their best. It would be for almost anyone. Their only other win over a team likely to be in the bracket came against
Creighton.
Utah State swept them, completing the job last Saturday. They will try to avoid the same fate against the league leading Lobos.
Teams near the cut line
NCAA Tournament locks
Note – all references to NCAA Tournament selection records and trends based on NET rankings excludes the 2021 tournament. Due to shortened schedules and a relatively small number of nonconference games, those rankings are not reliable enough to be considered.
