A Subdued Bubble Watch

We are now six days out from Selection Sunday and things are still pretty wide open on the bubble. Wichita State took care of business against Tulsa yesterday and that was pretty much it for bubble games.

Winthrop beat Hampton to win the Big South Tournament after trailing at the half. Bradley beat Valparaiso 80-66 in the Missouri Valley final and Liberty unfortunately beat Lipscomb in the ASUN final.

Small conference tournaments populate tonight’s fixtures and should make for good viewing as most of these teams are in a scrape to secure the only bid their league gets. There is very little in the way of bubble action today, so here is a couple games that should be entertaining and have a tournament impact.

ETSU (12) vs Wofford, 7pm, ESPN

The reason you’ve been seeing ETSU in almost every bracket prediction is because they’re predicted to walk away with the auto-bid. They are going up against a Wofford team that they beat 49-48 at home and 60-54 away. Slip-ups are not outside the realm of possibility as they lost at home to Mercer, a Q4 opponent. ETSU should win this one, but a loss would have them at 29-5 and nervously awaiting the selection show.

BYU (5) vs St. Mary’s (8), 11:30pm, ESPN2

These teams are both safely in to the tournament, but a win could really help both of them. A win for St. Mary’s could very realistically bump them up a seed line sine BYU is 9 in NET. A win for BYU could also help their seed but also give them a chance to have another match up with Gonzaga in the tournament final. Apart from all of that, this should be the best game of the night and staying up late to watch west coast basketball is always fun.

The bubble action subsides for a couple days whilst teams travel and await their opponents in their respective tournaments. Until then, soak in the glory of small conference tournament basketball.