Bracketology Bubble Watch: Maryland looks to boost NCAA tournament resumption after hopes slip on Saturday

Saturday was not a particularly good day for teams close to the bracket cup line. Case in point: Indiana’s home loss to Michigan State was the second best result of the day for these teams until very late into the evening.

The Hoosiers’ loss to the Spartans is a perfect match for the type of season they’ve had. It looks like even a game like this on the calendar can’t push IU past three games above 0.500. Indiana is going to have to have some quality wins to make it into the NCAA tournament now, not necessarily because they need it for their resume – although they do – but because there isn’t much left – thing on their timeline other than potential quality wins.

Indiana finishes at Rutgers, home of Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue. They also have a postponed game in Michigan that could still be postponed. Yikes.

The big win of the day belonged to North Carolina, which demolished Louisville 99-54. The Cardinals were in their first game after almost three weeks off due to a COVID break, but they should still be better than that. For the Tar Heels, it was their best win of the season and the first on a likely tournament team.

The worst loss of the day belongs to VCU, who came down to George Mason at home 79-76 in overtime. It’s the Rams’ second bad loss of the season at home, and when the highlights on your resume are a home win over St. Bonaventure and a site neutral win over Utah State, like this do a lot of damage.

It wasn’t a great day in the Big East either, as the three bubble teams in action all lost. UConn coped fairly well with an eight-point loss to Villanova. There is no real shame in that.

Seton Hall took his worst loss of the season at Georgetown by a score of 81-75. This will likely keep them out of range for at least another week.

St. John’s did better for the Pirates – getting beaten at home by DePaul. Since that six-game winning streak that put the Red Storm on the radar, they’ve suffered losses to both teams at the bottom of the standings.

There aren’t a lot of bubble games today, but they’re not unimportant.

Here are the bubble teams in action on Sunday. Every hour in the East