‘Twas 10 minutes Before Selection Sunday …
(I can’t think of anything basketball related that rhymes with “country”)
With T-minus 10 minutes before the NCAA Tournament Selections are announced, here’s what we know, what I know, what I think I know, and my best guesses at what will be unveiled to the world.
First, we know that the automatic bids, all 31 of them have been decided, from the conference tournaments, as follows:
ACC – Florida St
America East – Vermont
Atlantic-10 – St. Bonaventure
Atlantic Sun – Belmont
Big 12 – Missouri
Big East – Louisville
Big Sky – Montana
Big South – UNC Asheville
Big Ten – Michigan State
Big West – Long Beach State
Colonial – Virginia Commonwealth
Conference USA – Memphis
Horizon – Detroit
Ivy – Harvard
Metro Atlantic – Loyola (Md.)
Mid-American – Ohio
Mid-Eastern – Norfolk State
Missouri Valley – Creighton
Mountain West – New Mexico
Northeast – LIU Brooklyn
Ohio Valley – Murray State
Pac-12 – Colorado
Patriot – Lehigh
SEC – Vanderbilt
Southern – Davidson
Southland – Lamar
Summit League – S. Dakota State
Sun Belt – Western Kentucky
Southwestern Athletic – Mississippi Valley State
WAC – New Mexico State
West Coast – St. Mary’s
Second, that leaves 37 at-large bids. Looking at all the metrics I could, the various RPI lists out there, Ken Pomeroy’s data, the Sagarin rankings, and a couple of the more prominent bracketology sites, here are the teams that I know are locks, listed by conference (number of teams in parentheses):
ACC (3) – North Carolina, Duke, Virginia
Atlantic-10 (3) – Temple, St. Louis, Xavier
Big 12 (4) – Kansas, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas State
Big East (7) – Syracuse, Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Marquette, Georgetown, Connecticut, West Virginia
Big Ten (5) – Ohio St, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Purdue
Missouri Valley (1) – Wichita State
Mountain West (3) – San Diego State, Nevada Las Vegas, Colorado State
Pac-12 (1) – California
SEC (3) – Kentucky, Florida, Alabama
West Coast (1) – Gonzaga
That’s a total of 31 teams that should be safe, which would leave six (6) at-large spots. Here’s what I think are the teams competing for these spots, again listed by conference:
ACC (2) – North Carolina State, Miami (Fla.)
Big 12 (1) – Texas
Big East (2) – South Florida, Seton Hall
Big Ten (1) – Northwestern
Colonial (1) – Drexel
Conference USA (1) – Southern Mississippi
Metro Atlantic (1) – Iona
Pac-12 (2) – Washington, Arizona
SEC (3) – Mississippi State, Tennessee, Mississippi
WAC (1) – Nevada
West Coast (1) – Brigham Young
That’s 16 teams competing for the last six spots. Sparing all the hand-wringing and nit-picking, here’s my best guess as to the six (6) teams whose bubbles won’t burst today, in order from safest to least safe:
Brigham Young
Southern Mississippi
North Carolina State
Texas
South Florida
Washington
Drexel, Iona Mississippi State and Arizona would top my list of the last teams not selected. I just can’t see the committee leaving out the Pac-12 regular season champion, and I can’t recall the last time they left a regular-season champion of a so-called power conference out of the field. We’ll know starting in about 10 minutes.
Bobby True 
67 of 68 teams correct, only Iona sneaking in ahead of Washington (my last team in) and Drexel, my first team out. All 31 of the locks I called also made it. Guess that makes em an amatuer bracketologist.