NCAA Tournament Bubble Watch Teams and Bracketology Predictions

Cover Photo: Getty Images

It's finally that time of the college basketball year again. A handful of teams are looking at their calendars and realizing they may only have two or three games left to make a case for the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

With a finite amount of berths up for grabs in the Twilight Zone between Top-25 teams and conference champions, here are the The Duel staff's projections where each of these 12 teams land on Selection Sunday, March 17.

2019 NCAA Tournament Bubble Watch – Last Updated: March 6, 2019

Teams on the Bubble (Last Four In)

Ole Miss (19-10)
St. John's (20-10)
TCU (18-12)
Minnesota (18-11)

Ole Miss lost three in a row before its last regular season game, but the Rebels' ticket should be as good as punched if they can win at least two games in the SEC Tournament.

Forde Minutes First Half: Seven pressing March Madness questions, starting with the two sprained knees that could shape the bracket; how 10 bubble teams might defend their resumes; and who had the biggest tantrum in the last week? https://t.co/Ldj03uuZnu
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) March 5, 2019

St. John's already has 20 wins, but its résumé is noticeably light in a down year for the Big East. The Red Storm have two Top-25 wins (Villanova, Marquette), but they need to make some noise in the Big East tournament to secure a bid.

First Four Out

Texas (16-14)
Murray State (25-4)
Alabama (17-12)
Arizona State (20-9)

Murray State and Belmont are the two mid-major frontrunners out of the Ohio Valley Conference, but Ja Morant and the Racers already blew their lone regular season matchup with Belmont, 79-66.

One bubble team is 61 spots higher in the NCAA's new metric than it would have been in the RPI. On the teams the switch to the NET rankings has helped and hurt most: https://t.co/j2I4siSfJc
— Jeff Eisenberg (@JeffEisenberg) March 6, 2019

Texas is another team that's hard to imagine getting in ahead of any of our four bubble teams, especially TCU. The Longhorns and Horned Frogs clash for the final game of their regular season, but TCU already pocketed a 65-61 win earlier this season.

Last Four Out

Saint Mary's (20-11)
Temple (21-8)
Furman (24-6)
Indiana (15-14)

Last year's St. Mary's team went an astounding 30-6 on the season, which included a win over Gonzaga, but the Gaels still didn't make the NCAA Tournament. Unless St. Mary's can win out and knock off No. 1 Gonzaga in this year's WCC Tournament, it looks like recent history is going to repeat itself in 2019.

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David Hayes is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, David Hayes also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username DavidWHayes. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.