NCAA Tourney Bid Thieves

Possible bid thief leagues

Every year, a league or two produces an upset conference tournament champion to steal a bid to the NCAA Tournament from some unsuspecting bubble team. I am not talking about small conference one-bid league teams here either. I am referring to the likes of Georgia in 2008 and Houston last season that stole bids (likely from Virginia Tech in both cases sending Seth Greenberg to apoplectic insanity on the ESPN selection special each year). Here is my countdown of the most likely leagues to produce a bid-stealer.

1 Colonial Athletic – Most seasons, this is a one bid league. Not this year. George Mason is a lock and Old Dominion is certainly on the positive side of the bubble. In addition, Virginia Commonwealth spent much of its season on the bubble before recently falling off. With the tournament in Richmond, just a few miles from the VCU campus, the Rams are a possible thief as is Hofstra. The Pride have the best player in the league and the best player can carry a team through a three day tournament if he gets hot.

Most likely thief: VCU

2 Pac-10 – Nobody is really sold on Arizona, UCLA or Washington at this point and all have at least one brutal loss to someone outside of that group. USC, Washington St., or even Cal could get hot in this tournament and steal a bid and nobody would really bat an eye at it. The only question if that happens is if they steal conference rival Washington's bid or somebody else's.

Most likely thief: USC

3 SEC – Kentucky can't win away from home and Florida, with the exception of the dominating championship teams has traditionally treated this event with disdain. This makes a thief possible here, especially with Tennessee's inconsistency and Vanderbilt's inability to hold leads at times. Maybe a team from the West can finally make some noise here (looking at you Mississippi St. with your underachieving talent).

Most likely thief: Mississippi St.

Now, we look the other way. These leagues have a 0% chance of a bid thief. In fact I will print this post out and eat it if any of these leagues produce a thief.

1 Big East – With 11 teams pretty much locked in and no bubble teams, this league would seem to be a possible lack of motivation league. One problem: the bottom five in this league have to play five games in five days. No thief is going through five locks in five days to win this thing no matter how unmotivated the opposition might be in some of the games.

2 Mountain West – The top three in this league are all locked in and other than BYU's loss to New Mexico, none of them have lost a game to a team below 4^th in the standings all season. That will continue in the league tournament as the top three and bubble hopeful Colorado St. cruise to the semifinals.

3 Big 12 – Any team good enough to get through this bracket is either already a lock, or is a bubble team that wouldn't be stealing a bid because it would have been earned before the league final. If anyone thinks Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas Tech or Iowa St. is winning this tournament, they are insane.