Bracketology Bubble Watch: Ohio State begins key stretch as Arkansas, Vanderbilt suffer tough losses

Before we get to the bubble results, let’s look at the top of the bracket. Alabama lost 110-98 at Missouri on Wednesday, which is a big win for the Tigers and one that is not yet overly damaging for the Crimson Tide. For now, I am leaving Alabama as the No. 2 overall seed due to its strength of schedule and higher quality wins, but the Tide are probably one loss away from dropping down at least a little.

At the other end of the SEC standings, it was another bad night on the bubble. Arkansas fell at Auburn 67-60 to drop to 15-11 overall and just 8-11 against the top three quadrants. No team has ever received an at-large bid three or more games below .500 against that group of teams. The Razorbacks have three of their five remaining regular-season games at home, but they’re all against top-25 teams in the current bracket.

Vanderbilt is now 6-9 vs the top two quadrants following an 82-61 loss at Kentucky. Every team left on the Commodores’ schedule is, at worst, a bubble team.

Boise State picked up the big win of the day, beating Mountain West leader New Mexico 86-78. That is the Broncos’ third win of the season over a team likely to make the NCAA Tournament, although it is a Quad 2 game as of this morning. The Broncos still have two bad losses, plus one other to a team that is not headed to the NCAA Tournament, so there is still work to do — most of which is avoiding more bad losses. Utah State will come to Boise next week, though.

In the Big 12, West Virginia stayed afloat with a 62-59 win over Cincinnati. There is still work to do for the Mountaineers, who have games left at Texas Tech and BYU. The Bearcats have three of their next four at home, which are must-wins. The road trip is to Houston, which is an opportunity for a big splash.

Nebraska took the toughest loss of the night, 89-72 at Penn State. That is a Quad 1 loss by the smallest of margins, but if the Cornhuskers miss the field, the home losses to USC and Rutgers will be the ones that haunt them.

There is only one game on the docket tonight and it takes us to the Big Ten.

Check out Palm’s latest bracket, full field of 68 and Bubble Watch at the Bracketology hub

All times ET

Bubble team in action Thursday

Ohio State

vs. Northwestern, 6:30 p.m. | FS1, fubo (Try for free)

Ohio State has played hit-and-miss basketball this month, and that needs to change. Despite decent metrics, the Buckeyes are just 9-11 vs. the top three quadrants. Tonight’s game is especially important because they have three of their next four on the road, starting with a tour of Los Angeles.

Teams near the cut line

NCAA Tournament locks

Locks based on résumé: 16 | At-large bids in play: 41 | Automatic bids secured: 0 of 31

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 non-conference games, those rankings are not reliable enough to be considered.