Bubble Watch: Same as it ever was

A surprisingly quiet week on the bubble awaits one final twist

Photo credit: UC San Diego Athletics

The 2025 bubble has avoided chaos at every turn. Where were the upsets? Where were the bid thieves? Where was NC State, looking less-than-mediocre all year before unleashing DJ Burns onto an unsuspecting world, winning five games in its conference tournament, and changing the fundamental structure of the NCAA Tournament bracket?

None of it happened. Upsets were rare. The best teams won.

And so, on this most glorious of days, the bubble remains, mostly, in the same state as when the week began: with a bunch of high-major teams with questionable resumes hoping they are preferred by the selection committee over the others.

The bubble, as of this morning, comes down to this, in conference-affiliation alphabetical order:

North Carolina
Xavier
Indiana
Ohio State (sort of but not really)
Texas
VCU
Boise State
San Diego State

Even that is stretching it. It’s really, probably, if you really want to drill down: UNC, Xavier, Indiana, Texas, and Boise State — five teams vying for two spots.

Who do we think will get in? No clue! Happy to admit it! We are bearish on Boise, we’ll say. Fundamentally, we think the committee could go either way on any of these teams — it could find reasons to keep Texas out, or Indiana, or Xavier or UNC. All of the flaws are there. None have made an overwhelming case. Your view of all of them may vary just slightly enough to change the whole balance; you can be people in the committee will have drastically different views of each.

Meanwhile, as of this morning, there are no mid-major teams to which we have grown sentimentally attached, who have won a ton of games, that we are willing to stump for. There are no Indiana States to be found.

That could change later today: VCU could lose in the A10 title game. (If they do, we don’t imagine it will change much for VCU, because we do think the Rams should be in, but it would be close. At the very least it would shrink the bubble by a spot.) The same goes for the AAC championship, where Memphis has to beat UAB to prevent another at-large spot from going away.

Either, or both, would change the calculus come Sunday afternoon. Failing that, this is where things stand — which is, funny enough, more or less where they stood last Monday. It has been an incredible week of basketball. It has been a fascinating week for arguments. It has also been shockingly, unusually quiet. The only thing left is the bracket itself.

Automatic bids: 27
Locks: 30
Should be in: 7
Waiting game: 9

The usual housekeeping:

• As we’ve been doing all week, this is a running file we send out anew to email subscribers every morning. Some team blurbs may not be updated if said teams haven’t played a game since last writing. Sometimes they will be anyway! (Most of them will be.)

• 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 think we missed something, get in touch in the comments or shoot me a note.

• NET and SOR are always current as of the previous day. Records are always up to date. Thanks as ever to Warren Nolan for his immensely helpful site.

• We wrote all of this, by hand, as nature intended. If you would like to support these efforts (and be able to comment, and join the live chats, and — at the founding tier — do a regular Zoom call with us to talk hoops, not to mention stick around throughout the ever-morphing offseason coaching carousel and portal insanity to come) please consider a paid subscription today. Thanks!

ACC

It sounds like Duke star Cooper Flagg will be available for the NCAA Tournament. That’s good news for Duke. (Hard-hitting stuff there.) But we also have to note how impressive Duke was without him Saturday night. Whereas the Blue Devils looked cowed and nervous in their second half against UNC Friday, they were assured and solid against an obviously better Louisville team Saturday, and this team’s depth shone. Kon Knueppel: good player. Tyrese Proctor: also yes. The lesser-spotted Mason Gillis reminded why he was a crucial piece on a dominant Purdue a year ago. This has always been an overwhelmingly good roster, from the moment we saw it come together last spring, and that depth and quality was on full display even without Flagg and Maliq Brown. Duke will be just fine.

Automatic bid: Duke
Lock: Clemson, Louisville
Waiting game: North Carolina