SEC Bubble Watch: March 9

In the SEC

There weren't any SEC games yesterday, so obviously nothing on-court changed for any of the league's teams.

The Bracket Matrix, as with Joe Lunardi's latest projection, has Texas A&M as the first team out of the tournament. Ole Miss slid in both as a result of losing to Vanderbilt, and ESPN's Bubble Watch by Eamonn Brennan actually downgraded the Rebels from a lock to merely "should be in". Georgia seems to be fine after pushing Kentucky and holding off Auburn, while LSU's win over Arkansas had the expected buoyancy effect.

Around the Country

Tulsa, like A&M, had slipped out of projected brackets over the course of the week. The Golden Hurricane could have reversed that slide yesterday, but it fell to SMU 67-62. Unless Tulsa gets some head-turning wins in the AAC Tournament, it's basically done as a bubble contender.

Unfortunately, Cincinnati did take care of business by handling Memphis 77-65. The Bearcats wouldn't have dropped out of the projected field with a loss, but it would have helped.

Finally, the Arch Madness finale started off a little dicey but turned out OK as Northern Iowa came back from a deficit as large as 18 at one point to defeat Illinois State 69-60. UNI has long been a lock, but ISU hasn't really been a real tournament contender. The Panthers killed off a bid thief, keeping the at-large pool one slot larger than it would've been otherwise.