The Oregon Ducks are a bid-stealer. They won the Pac-12 Tournament and grabbed an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Pac-12 is guaranteed to have three bids to the Big Dance. Now we get to see if Colorado will make it four.
Colorado is not in bad shape, but it’s not a lock with Oregon shrinking the bubble. North Carolina State grabbed a surprising automatic bid in the ACC. Florida Atlantic losing in the AAC Tournament means the AAC should get a second bid, which reduces the size of the bubble even more. Colorado could be thrown into a pot with Oklahoma, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Michigan State, Texas A&M, and a few other schools still on the bubble and not completely guaranteed to be in the NCAA Tournament. Colorado had a good week at the Pac-12 Tournament, beating Utah and Washington State, but with the bubble results we had on Friday and Saturday — in which a lot of automatic bids reduced the size of the bubble — at least one or two teams believed to be in good shape on Thursday or Friday will be pushed out of the field. That’s what those surprising automatic bids can do to bubble teams. Someone will be gut-punched on Selection Sunday.
We will see if Colorado is that team. That’s all for another year of bubble watch, the last one for the Pac-12 Conference.
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