Bubble Watch: Don't cry for the bubble, it's already dead

An epidemic of bid theft means your favorite team might now be doomed

Is 2024 the worst year ever to be on the bubble? Folks inside the committee room seem to think so. Here’s NCAA director of media coordination David Worlock tweeting live and direct a few minutes before the clock struck Selection Sunday, lamenting the committee’s plight after a wild Saturday night:

This makes perfect sense. In most seasons, you can expect one or two late bid thieves, and very rarely from strong high-major leagues. But Saturday night gave us two: NC State in the ACC, and Oregon in the Pac-12, both of whom immediately shrunk the bubble by one crucial spot. Add in Florida Atlantic’s loss at the American Athletic Conference tournament and Dayton’s defeat in the A10 tourney, and that’s four bids being stolen from bubble teams that probably really liked their chances when they went to bed Thursday night.

For the past two months, we have stayed up late and written untold thousands of words about college basketball and the 2023-24 season, and a good deal of those words have been about various teams’ chances of making the NCAA Tournament. By the start of Champ Week, we usually have a very good idea who is going to get in and who is in trouble. But we’ve never had an entire seed line’s worth of bid thieves — an entire “last four in” ripped out of the bracket the night before it is built.

It is utter chaos, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

There is no predicting the committee’s random annual surprises. There is always one, at least one, and you never quite know from which direction it will originate. That could still be your team. That is what we’re most excited for today, because the outfits we sent the past two weeks saying were on the bubble now aren’t, and the teams actually on the bubble on the morning of Selection Sunday are almost never this strong.

Automatic bids from non-Bubble Watch (one-bid) leagues: 21
Locks: 33
Should be in: 4
Waiting game: 11

Housekeeping:

• This is the last Bubble Watch of 2023-24; thanks for coming on the ride. Single tear emoji. We’ll be live chatting all day before, during, and after the selection show, and March Madness posting will begin in earnest this week. Onward and upward.

• Some email providers impose limits on email length. This is a long file, so if your email cuts off, be sure to click through to the site itself to read it all.

• There are almost certainly typos in the below copy. We are our only editor; this is a one-man show. If you spot factual mistakes or just think we should consider a team not on the page, get in touch in the comments or shoot me a note.

• NET, SOR and records are updated as of Sunday morning. Thanks as ever to Warren Nolan for his immensely helpful site.

ACC

NC State’s incredible five-in-five run to the ACC title will be remembered primarily in these parts for the late impact it had on one of the tightest bubbles in recent memory, because this is Bubble Watch and that’s how we understand this stuff this time of year, but let’s not glide past the actual accomplishment itself. The Wolfpack are a long-suffering bunch. All they want is basketball victory. It almost always eludes them. This might not be the sort of sustainable, year-in-year out success you can count on, but truly: who cares?

Even if you’re a disgruntled NC State fan dissatisfied with the direction of the program under Kevin Keatts, you would absolutely trade what happened this week — beating Duke, shocking Virginia at the buzzer, and culminating in an all-time program win arch rival Carolina — for two more years of Keatts’ contract, an extension triggered by the tournament bid NC State stole from someone else. It’s not quite Dan Monson levels of strange (Monson was fired at LBSU Monday and coached his team to the tournament Saturday night), but it is a slightly awkward situation for any NC State fan that (rightly or wrongly) thought it was time to move on from Keatts as the Wolfpack dropped their final four games of the season this time last week. March is amazing.

Locks: North Carolina, Duke, Clemson
Waiting game: Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Virginia