March Madness bracket bubble watch: Gonzaga's ticket to NCAA tournament is available, but it won't be free

Mike DeCourcy

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March Madness bracket bubble watch: Gonzaga's ticket to NCAA tournament is available, but it won't be free image

In case you haven’t noticed your calendar, it is March.

Like, all month.

But the Marchiest days are the next 10, because they are filled with the anxiety that is endemic to the NCAA Tournament bubble. Teams want in, badly. That doesn’t mean they always play well, though, and when they don’t, the players, coaches and fans feel those losses more.

And there have been plenty with this year’s edition.

Of the 16 teams identified in the February 23 Bubble Watch, 13 went on to lose at least one game in the week since. Texas A&M and Ole Miss fell twice in the SEC, as did Cincinnati in the Big 12, Butler in the Big East and Virginia Tech in the ACC. Only Oregon, Colorado and St. John’s avoided defeat.

MORE: Projecting the men's 2024 field | Women's 2024 field

Remember when so many were mad at Rick Pitino for saying mean stuff about his players?

How’d that turn out?

That’s right: They’ve since won three games and have a legitimate shot to make the NCAA field. Losing one or more of those games might have finished the Red Storm.

Now they get the weekend off – with DePaul and Georgetown next up for St. John’s, there’s a great chance to end on a five-game win streak – while everyone else in Bubble territory sweats. A lot.

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Best Bubble Game of Saturday

  • Gonzaga at Saint Mary’s, 10 p.m., ESPN, Sling.

This is the game that could decide it for the Zags: the run of consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances that stands at 24, the string of eight consecutive Sweet 16s. If the Zags can go into the University Credit Union Pavilion and leave with a victory, they’ll almost certainly reach the NCAA field.

If they don’t win this game, there’s still a path to entry through a championship and automatic bid from the West Coast Conference Tournament, or from the inability of others to construct superior resumes.

The latter is why they stand where they do now, as the literal last team in according to the consensus of online brackets assembled by BracketMatrix.com. Because we’re still talking about a team with a 2-5 record against Quad 1 opponents and just 4-6 against the first two quadrants.

Their performance metrics (KenPom, BPI, NET) rank them 19th, but the resume metrics that aren’t interested in margin of victory (Strength of Record, KPI) average to 55. It’s not what they call in this sport “a slam dunk”.

Saint Mary's owns the nation's longest winning streak, at 16 games, and is undefeated in the West Coast Conference. Beating the Gaels would give Gonzaga a second Quad-1 win in three days after it beat San Francisco on Thursday. The Zags could use it, for sure.

N'Faly Dante
(Getty Images)

Others to monitor (bubble team in bold):

  • Oregon at Arizona, 2 p.m., ESPN, Sling
  • Wake Forest at Virginia Tech, 5:30 p.m., The CW
  • Iowa at Northwestern, 5:30, Big Ten Network, Sling
  • Virginia at Duke, 6 p.m., ESPN, Sling
  • Pitt at Boston College, 6 p.m, ACC Network, Sling
  • Texas A&M at Georgia, 6 p.m., SEC Network, Sling
  • Ole Miss at Missouri, 8:30 p.m., SEC Network, Sling

BUY NOW: Get SEC basketball tournament tickets on StubHub

Best Bubble Game of Sunday

  • Rutgers at Nebraska, 6:30, Big Ten Network, Sling

The Cornhuskers have built much of their case for NCAA Tournament entry on their success at Pinnacle Bank Arena, the program’s home since the 2013-14 season. They already set a record for home victories with last Sunday’s comfortable win over Minnesota. They can extend that with a similar result, but good luck figuring out an unpredictable Rutgers squad that scored 46 points at home Sunday against Maryland and four days later pounded Michigan with 82 points. That’s a 36-point swing in four days.

The Huskers don’t have any regular-season games left that can significantly help their resume. But games like this one – Rutgers ranks 98th in the NET – certainly can hurt.

Others to monitor (bubble team in bold):

  • Seton Hall at Connecticut, Noon, CBS, Fubo
  • Stanford at Colorado, 9 p.m., FS1, Sling

BUY NOW: Cheapest tickets for the Pac-12 men's basketball tournament on StubHub

Pure Bubble Games:

The beauty of a pure bubble game is that both teams involved, find themselves in the similar circumstance. Neither can afford to lose, nor can they afford the opponent to win. There’s nothing quite like in any other sport.

Saturday

  • Villanova at Providence, noon, Fox, Fubo
  • New Mexico at Boise State, 8 p.m., CBS Sports Network, Fubo

Mike DeCourcy

Mike DeCourcy Photo

Mike DeCourcy has been the college basketball columnist at The Sporting News since 1995. Starting with newspapers in Pittsburgh, Memphis and Cincinnati, he has written about the game for 35 years and covered 32 Final Fours. He is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Hall of Fame and is a studio analyst at the Big Ten Network and NCAA Tournament Bracket analyst for Fox Sports. He also writes frequently for TSN about soccer and the NFL. Mike was born in Pittsburgh, raised there during the City of Champions decade and graduated from Point Park University.