After NC State's close loss to rival North Carolina on Saturday, the remaining ACC bubble teams have officially bowed out of the conference postseason. So where do they stand? Miami is in trouble after Friday's loss to Florida State, but not totally out of the picture, depending on how much weight the committee gives to that marquee win at Duke. NC State, meanwhile, has to feel more confident about its bid. If the committee saw Saturday's loss (preceded by a win over Virginia), they saw a team play one of the nation's best close for all 40 minutes -- the last eight of which came without its best player, C.J. Leslie, who fouled out on a massive mistake by the NCSU coaching staff -- and one that received the worst end of a universally bad officiating performance by the ACC referees. (When Pack fans complain that Duke and UNC get all the calls, Kendall Marshall's apparent game-winning charge is what they mean.) In any case, the committee was no doubt in front of the TV, and even without the win, NC State's effort seems likely to be rewarded.

North Carolina State [22-12 (9-7), RPI: 46, SOS: 22] Mark Gottfried's team entered the day as one of Joe Lunardi's last four teams in the tournament, which is a pretty good spot to be in when your worst-case scenario is a loss to putative No. 1 seed North Carolina. An uncompetitive blowout loss might have changed this status for the worse, but what NC State did -- playing UNC close to the final buzzer, and getting the wrong end of a couple of key calls (the refs were bad for both teams, but there's little question that NC State felt the lion's share of the pain) -- certainly can't hurt their chances, can it? The Pack is far from a lock, of course (there's that pesky 1-8 record against the top 50), but they're in much better shape than when they arrived in Atlanta. That much is for sure.

Miami (FL) [19-12 (9-7), RPI: 60, SOS: 55] Can the Hurricanes still get in the tournament? To do so, they'll need some help, some confluence of bubble losses around them that pave the way, because after Friday night's loss to Florida State, Jim Larranaga's team finds itself most likely outside the bubble (as per Joe Lunardi) -- and without another game to boost its credentials with less than 48 hours until the bracket is revealed. After Friday's loss, Miami is 2-8 against the RPI top 50, with a good win over Florida State and a great win at Duke but only one other victory -- and three more losses (or 3-11 overall) -- in the top 100. The near-60 RPI isn't necessarily prohibitive, but it ain't pretty. Taken as a whole with the rest of this profile, there's just not as much here as you'd like. Miami's fate is in the committee's hands, and if we had to guess, we'd say the Canes aren't going to like what they hear Sunday. But hey, it's March. You never know.

So here's how things went down in the Big East Thursday: UConn lost to Syracuse (but moved to lock status all the same) and West Virginia and Seton Hall were dormant (and in various stages of bubble duress), which left just South Florida, which topped Villanova Wednesday, left to make moves along the bubble line Thursday night. The Bulls did not do so. USF took Notre Dame to the wire in one of the slowest, least exciting overtime games you'll ever see, but eventually came up short. A win would have been huge, obviously, but a loss leaves USF pretty much where it was before the day began. The Bulls might get in. They might not. But their fate is fully in the committee's hands now.

West Virginia [19-13 (9-9), RPI: 53, SOS: 17] The Mountaineers haven't made this thing easy, have they? A team with a top-15 strength of schedule and a top-25 nonconference SOS -- typical Bob Huggins scheduling numbers -- should be in strong position to make the tournament field, and for all intents and purposes, the Mountaineers are. But Wednesday's loss to UConn, coupled with a 4-8 mark against the RPI top 50, does raise some matter of doubt. Those wins over Georgetown and in Wichita against K-State seem like ages ago. That said, when you dig into the nuts and bolts of some of the bubble's more specious cases, WVU still looks like a better selection. But when you go 4-8 in your final 12 and lose your first Big East tournament game, you can't feel 100 percent safe. Nor should you.

South Florida [20-13 (12-6), RPI: 51, SOS: 35] So if Northwestern is now out of the tournament -- as most, including the Watch, seem to think is the case -- where does that leave USF? NU has one top-50 win. South Florida has two. And both have a bunch of top-50 losses. In Northwestern's case, the number is 10. In USF's, it's nine. But South Florida also has a trio of bad losses below the RPI top 100 line, which Northwestern lacks (the Wildcats lost a bunch of games, but they didn't lose any bad ones in the nonconference, and their worst losses came to Minnesota and Illinois). Set aside USF's conference record, because the committee says conference record isn't a factor in selection, and the Watch believes it. When you do, you see a pretty mediocre tally of wins backed up by some decent, but not great, computer numbers. Oh, and a 6-11 record away from home. At this point, USF's bid chances are a total toss-up. Like Northwestern and Seton Hall and more than a few bubble compadres, all the Bulls can do now is wait it out.

Seton Hall [20-12 (8-10), RPI: 61, SOS: 57] There are always bubble winners and bubble losers, and the Pirates are now solidly among the second group. That's not to say they can't get in the tournament after Wednesday night's loss to Louisville. They can, and they might. But Seton Hall's fate is now entirely out of its own hands, and that's never where you want to be with just four days left until Selection Sunday. The resume doesn't exactly speak volumes: The 3-7 top-50 record is very blah, and really only one of those wins (over Georgetown; the other two came over UConn and VCU) is going to impress the committee in any meaningful way. There's also the bad loss at DePaul last Saturday to factor in, not to mention SHU's 5-10 record in its past 15 games. If the Hall gets in the tournament, it will be because either (A) teams such as Northwestern, Oregon, Colorado State and Xavier collapse or (B) the committee surprises us. Or both. But it won't be thanks to anything the committee saw Wednesday night.

As far as the Big Ten is concerned, it's all Northwestern, all the time. So: Does the Wildcats' first-round tournament loss to Minnesota seal their fate? When you dig in to their profile, it certainly looks that way.

Northwestern [18-13 (8-10), RPI: 59, SOS: 15] The Watch isn't sure a win would have sealed Northwestern's fate. It isn't sure a loss does so either. But things are definitely leaning more toward the latter than the former now. There just really isn't a whole lot here. The Wildcats didn't suffer any bad losses this season (and Minnesota, as a top-100 RPI team, doesn't count as a bad loss, per se), but their only top-50 win -- in 11 tries, no less -- came over Michigan State back on Jan. 14. Since then, Northwestern has dropped every big close game, every potential marquee win, oftentimes in OT or by narrow margins in regulation. Thursday was no different. It's a heartbreaking situation for a tortured fan base, and this really felt like the year, you know? But right now, barring a rash of bad losses along the bubble or among current 10, 11 and 12 seeds already in the field, that historic tournament drought appears set to continue for yet another season. It's brutal, but that's life as a Northwestern fan, it seems.

Texas didn't show all that well against Missouri on Friday night, but that's hard to hold against the Longhorns. After Thursday's win over Iowa State, and some helpful losses from comparable bubble foes across the country, it looks like the Longhorns are finally in decent shape.

Texas [20-13 (9-9), RPI: 48, SOS: 13] Obviously, a loss to Missouri doesn't hurt Texas' reputation. A win would have been nice, sure, but Missouri is awfully good, and when star guard J'Covan Brown pulled up lame in the second half -- he returned but seemed a step slow the rest of the way -- the chances of an upset in the Big 12 semis shrunk drastically. In any case, the real work was done Thursday, when UT toppled an NCAA tourney team in Iowa State and the rest of the teams in Texas' previous last-four-in-ish range (Northwestern, Seton Hall, etc.) lost. This profile is sort of weird. The Longhorns haven't played any teams ranked between 50 and 100 in the RPI; they're 4-11 against the top-50 mark (and 1-8 against the top 25) and 16-2 against teams ranked 101 or worse. You don't see that every day. What does that mean for the bid? We're not sure, but even with a rather so-so profile (and variously mediocre RPI and scheduling numbers), it's hard to see how this team could miss the cut as opposed to, say, Northwestern.

Finally, mercifully, we have our Pac-12 automatic bid: The Colorado Buffaloes. For as bad as this league was this season, Colorado's Pac-12 tourney title win counts as a major accomplishment for this team. Tad Boyle lost his two best players (including first-round draft pick Alec Burks) from the 2010-11 team, which failed to make the tournament. Boyle's rebuilt team, facing a new conference with new coaches and new road venues and entirely different surroundings, found a way to get in the tournament all the same. Hats should come off. The Wildcats, meanwhile, were a long shot before the Pac-12 tournament, and the way the bracket shook out -- with Washington, a potential profile-improving opponent, falling in the quarterfinals -- Arizona almost certainly needed the automatic bid to get in the tournament. As it stands, this league looks like a two-bid conference, with Cal likely getting an at-large alongside the tourney champion Buffaloes.

California [24-9 (13-5), RPI: 38, SOS: 90] The only good news in the Bears' loss is that it increases the chances the Pac-12 won't be a one-bid league, which would be a scarlet letter of shame for a once-proud power-six league. But can Cal really feel safe? The Bears have a couple of things going for them. Chief among them is the top-40 RPI, which is something no other Pac-12 team can boast, and while raw RPI isn't the only factor, it does help. Other useful marks include a 24-9 overall record and a 9-7 record against the RPI top 100, as well as top-100 overall and noncon SOS marks. But other than that, Cal played three games against top-50 teams, all outside its league, all of which were losses (and two of which, UNLV and Missouri, were drastic blowouts), and Friday's loss dropped the Bears to 7-8 outside their own gym. The bubble is soft, and Cal looks better than much of it, but the lack of top-end wins and the overall shakiness certainly doesn't impress us much. The committee might feel differently, but we're not ready to move Cal toward safer Watch territory before Sunday.

Oregon [22-9 (13-5), RPI: 62, SOS: 91] The Ducks entered Thursday's Pac-12 date with Colorado in definite need of a win. In fact, they needed more than that -- they needed the bubble to collapse, and they needed to push deep into the Pac-12 tournament, most likely to the final, which would have included a win over Cal. The former happened. The latter did not. Oregon's one-point loss to the Buffaloes doesn't entirely remove Dana Altman's team from consideration. But it does leave the Ducks -- with their prohibitive RPI, 0-4 record against the top 50 and 5-8 record against the top 100 -- firmly below Cal and Washington on the Pac-12 hierarchy and decidedly below most bubble teams with realistic shots of getting in the field.

Washington [21-10 (14-4), RPI: 70, SOS: 94] It's official: Washington fans have absolutely no right to complain about the Huskies' "lack of respect" in regard to their at-large NCAA tournament chances. When you have this resume -- when your best nonconference win is UC Santa Barbara and your best league win (and the only top-70 victory) is at home against Oregon -- you simply cannot afford to end the Pac-12 tournament the way the Huskies ended theirs. Thursday's second-round loss to Oregon State may well spell "NIT" for the Huskies. They have the regular-season conference title going for them and ... that's pretty much it. They're 0-5 against the RPI top 50, 4-8 against the top 100, 6-8 away from their own building, with an RPI near 70. Nothing about this resume screams NCAA tournament team. They'll stay on the page for now, but it really isn't looking good. Considering all the NBA talent on this roster, the current state of affairs has to be considered a massive disappointment.

Arizona [23-11 (12-6), RPI: 75, SOS: 124] The Wildcats won't move entirely out of consideration after their Pac-12 final loss to Colorado, so we'll keep them on the page. But things are definitely looking grim. There's that 70ish RPI and the lack of schedule strength, both in and out of conference, as well as the lack of top-50 wins, a trait shared by much of the Pac-12 -- but also by many of the bubbliest teams in the country, too. You know what Zona would like to have back right now? That awful loss at ASU (RPI 251!) in the regular-season finale. A win over Washington may have helped, but Sean Miller's team didn't get that chance. As such, it would be a major shock to see Arizona make it into the field on Sunday. Crazier things have happened, but not often.

Mississippi's win over Tennessee Friday had the chief effect of damaging the Volunteers' late-surge-driven at-large case beyond repair, but it also put the Rebels on the margins of bubble consideration pending a good result against Vanderbilt on Saturday. That didn't happen. Instead, Ole Miss fell 65-53. Andy Kennedy's often overmatched team put up a good fight all season long, but it probably didn't do enough to get in the tournament, win over UT or no. Meanwhile, Mississippi State will enter Selection Sunday perilously close to the bubble. Will the committee overlook the late collapse in favor of the whole body of work? Should it? We'll see.

Ole Miss [20-13 (8-8), RPI: 57, SOS: 52] The Rebels never looked like a potential tournament team until very late, when they won their final three regular-season games and halted Auburn and fellow surging bubble contender Tennessee in the first two rounds of the SEC tournament. At that point -- last night -- it was impossible to ignore Ole Miss' at-large potential. But it appears that potential will be unrequited. Saturday's semifinal loss to Vanderbilt probably needed to be a win if the Rebs wanted to overcome what is now a 60ish RPI, weak nonconference strength of schedule, 6-12 mark against the RPI top 100 and a 1-7 mark against the top 50. (The only win in that batch came over Alabama on March 3.) Like Arizona above, we're keeping Ole Miss on the page just in case something crazy happens tomorrow. But it's hard to envision Andy Kennedy's team getting in the tournament now.

Mississippi State [21-11 (8-8), RPI: 73, SOS: 87] It's almost like the Bulldogs don't want to make the tournament. What other conclusion can we draw? Clearly, this team is more talented than its record in its last eight games, which, after a loss to those other Bulldogs in the first round of the SEC tournament Thursday, is now 2-6. That stretch has included two losses to Georgia, one to LSU and one to Auburn, with understandable losses to Kentucky and Alabama. Something's obviously dysfunctional here. But what about the actual resume? It doesn't look much better. The RPI is prohibitively high, the SOS figure doesn't do much, and a 200-ish nonconference schedule looks bad, especially considering MSU's best wins are at Vanderbilt and versus West Virginia and Alabama. For much of the bubble season, throughout this collapse, the Bulldogs looked like they could hold on if only because of those wins. But taken together with the rest of this profile -- and with no chances to get a win now, obviously -- the Watch isn't so sure this team should make the tournament after all.

Tennessee [18-14 (10-6), RPI: 85, SOS: 40] The Volunteers felt a little like a team of destiny -- they just kept winning and improving, improving and winning, and before you knew it, they were the No. 2 seed in the SEC tournament and a legitimate bubble contender. But the early remnants of the rebuilding season this was supposed to be meant UT still had plenty of work to do in New Orleans; if you're going to be the team that plays so well down the stretch it proves its first few months were irrelevant, you've got make sure your case is on point. In other words, that work surely included a win over Ole Miss in the SEC tourney quarterfinals. As you know, that didn't happen. (And in unfortunate fashion, too. Tennessee had a legit beef about a late out-of-bounds call that should have gone its way.) In any case, the Vols are now 18-14 overall with a 3-11 road-neutral record and a bad RPI. It's not looking good.

All in all, the Watch supposes Colorado State's Mountain West tournament foray could have gone better -- it could have left Friday night with a win over No. 1-seed San Diego State, a victory that might have made this profile downright lockworthy. As it is, CSU lost, but after it avoided a loss to TCU in the first round, the MWC is looking more than ever like a four-bid league.

Colorado State [20-11 (8-6), RPI: 27, SOS: 4] A loss to San Diego State doesn't remotely qualify as "bad," but it is a loss all the same, which means CSU won't get any sort of symbolic boost on the page here. That said, what once looked like a fringe bubble team with insanely inflated numbers looks much better now. The 3-6 record against the RPI top 50 isn't all that pretty, nor is the 7-9 mark against the top 100, but the NCAA trusts its computer numbers, and RPI and a top-five SOS figure are Colorado's twin aces in the hole. Toss in the rest of the bubble mess this week and the seeming inability of most of CSU's putative competitors to get over the hump, and the Rams should be in strong position for a bid come Sunday. That's our hunch.

The St. Bonaventure Bonnies are now in the A-10 tournament final. In getting there, they sank not one but two fringe bubble teams: Saint Joseph's and UMass. Neither team was in strong enough position to avoid a loss to a team with the Bonnies' resume (and no, sorry, St. Bonaventure is not a bubble team). UMass was a major long shot even after Friday's win over Temple; after Saturday's close loss in the A-10 semis, whatever slight chance the Minutemen had is officially gone. That leaves just Temple and Saint Louis as locks, with Xavier still fighting for its life along the cut line. But things are looking up now: Xavier's A-10 semis win over SLU puts the Musketeers nearer a bid than they've been in awhile.

Xavier [21-12 (10-6), RPI: 37, SOS: 36] It looks more likely than ever -- or at least since Dec. 10, when Xavier found itself in a season-changing fistfight with rival Cincinnati -- that the Musketeers are going to keep their streak of six straight NCAA tournament appearances alive. That's the result of Saturday's huge A-10 semifinals win over Saint Louis, a team likely already in the tournament. Sure X would've felt a lot better with a win in Sunday's A-10 title game, but its solid numbers have only climbed in the past week (the RPI, SOS and nonconference schedule all rank among the nation's top 45 now), and that's good news. After an ugly, frustrating season, the Musketeers needed desperately to prove they were playing some of their best basketball at the right time, that they were closer to the team we saw in November and early December than the one we saw in January and early February. This late run might just do the trick.

After the conclusion of the C-USA championship game Saturday -- an 83-57 Memphis win over Marshall -- the "others" category is officially settled. What you see here is what you get: Southern Miss is probably fine; BYU is tenuous but likely in on the right side of the bubble right now; while Drexel, Iona, Marshall and Oral Roberts will be subject to the whims of the committee in the next 24 hours. Where they land is anyone's guess. Meanwhile, congratulations go out to the Long Beach State 49ers, who put themselves in the thick of the bubble conversation this season by taking the committee's emphasis on strong nonconference scheduling to its furthest logical extreme. In November and December, the Beach went to Pitt, San Diego State, Louisville, Kansas and North Carolina and Honolulu for the Diamond Head Classic. The only wins in the bunch were Pitt and Xavier, but besides earning the nation's No. 1 nonconference schedule, that absolutely brutal schedule clearly prepared LBSU for a near-peerless run through the Big West, which concluded with the tourney title and automatic bid late Saturday night against old nemesis UCSB. Look out for Dan Monson's team in the tournament folks. No matter where they play, they'll be ready.

Southern Miss [25-8 (11-5), RPI: 20, SOS: 56] After a semifinals loss to Marshall, the Golden Eagles are hardly finishing the season strong, but it's difficult to look askance at a profile that includes a top-20 RPI and a top-30 nonconference schedule strength. Besides, a loss to the Thundering Herd (themselves owners of a top-50 RPI) isn't exactly a disqualifier. All things considered, when you combine this team's computer numbers with its solid 9-4 record against the RPI top 70, with the general bubble deflation we've seen in the past two days, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Southern Miss doesn't get in.

Iona [25-7 (15-3), RPI: 42, SOS: 163] After the Gaels lost to Fairfield in the MAAC tournament semifinals this weekend, coach Tim Cluess had a bubble-related message to unfurl: "If you're going to pick eight or nine teams out of the Big East, that's nonsense. Those teams aren't as good as we are." He may have a point. The problem is that his team hasn't proven it. Iona had a chance to beat Purdue in November in Puerto Rico; it didn't. Iona had a chance to beat Marshall in December; it lost 82-63. On Dec. 29, Iona lost at Hofstra, a team with an RPI ranked outside the top 250. (Ouch.) This weekend, it had a chance to prove how good it was -- by beating Fairfield and the rest of the MAAC and locking it its automatic bid. It didn't. Much as we love Scott Machado and the Gaels' considerable talent -- and much as we would love to see Iona in the tournament -- the Watch must admit that a team with this sort of resume doesn't deserve special consideration because its coach happens to think it's better than the eighth or ninth team in the Big East. We're not saying he's wrong. We're simply saying that the profile is what it is. As such, Iona probably needs to get lucky along the cut line in the next few days -- or get a lucky break from the committee -- to get back in the legitimate tourney fold.

Marshall [21-13 (9-7), RPI: 43, SOS: 14] What are we to make of the Thundering Herd after Saturday? Marshall wasn't competitive against Memphis in Saturday's C-USA title game, which is hardly a crime; this Tigers team is peaking at the right time. But a win, or at least a more convincing effort, would have been nice. The Herd got a nice top-25 win over Southern Miss on Friday and has put itself into at least reasonable position for an at-large spot. The problem is the lack of marquee wins. Cincinnati, Iona and Southern Miss are this team's best victories, and decent though they are, it's not an overwhelming group of wins. But the computer numbers are really strong. There's a top-40ish RPI, a top-30 overall schedule and a top-10 nonconference schedule strength, and we all know how much the committee loves to see teams schedule well in the nonconference, whether that schedule translates into wins or not. They're in the mix, but this weekend's efforts might have been too little, too late.

Brigham Young [25-8 (12-4), RPI: 49, SOS: 111] After this weekend's WCC semifinals loss to Gonzaga, BYU is basically where it was last week, and where it's been for nearly all of Bubble Watch season -- squarely on the bubble. Other than a home win over Gonzaga in early February, the Cougars' best victories are as follows: Nevada, Oregon, Weber State, Buffalo. Its RPI is in reasonable territory, but it hardly demands inclusion, and the rest of the resume (1-6 vs. the top 50, 5-6 vs. the top 100, so-so schedule strength) means Dave Rose's team is likely to be sweating Selection Sunday in a major way.

Oral Roberts [27-6 (17-1), RPI: 55, SOS: 228] Oral Roberts fans have been incessantly pinging the Watch on Twitter over the past week, asking exactly why the Golden Eagles haven't been getting the same at-large bubble "love" as, say, Drexel. The cries of "no respect!" have rang out far and wide across the intertubes. The Watch tries to avoid peer pressure at all costs, of course, but the more it looked at ORU's resume, the more it had to just come out and admit it: Those fans have a point. That's not to say the Eagles have a totally strong case. The decent RPI and the 18-2 Summit League mark are about the best things going. The strength of schedule figures are ugly and the win at Xavier comes with asterisk since X had just been wrecked with suspensions. But when you compare and contrast this profile with, say, Drexel's -- a team most believe to be worthy of a bid -- ORU's has similar marks in road-neutral record (12-6), top-50 (2-2), top-100 (3-3) and its quantity of wins against teams outside the top 200 (both went 15-0). The CAA was better than the Summit League, and Drexel's 25-2 record in its last 27 games is still a major credential, but if we're talking about Drexel as an at-large, it's hard to ignore the fightin' Oral Bobs in that calculus, too.

Drexel [27-6 (16-2), RPI: 64, SOS: 248] The Dragons looked dead in the water for much of Monday night's CAA title game loss to VCU, but they came alive in the end, pushing the Rams -- who led all game -- to a freaky final few minutes that even included a game-tying 3-point attempt from Frantz Massenat with just three seconds remaining. It missed, VCU survived and Drexel was suddenly thrown into the fulcrum of what promises to be a fascinating bubble conversation. The Dragons' only top-100 wins came over VCU, George Mason, Cleveland State and Princeton, only one of which will be the in the NCAA tournament. They also own losses to Norfolk State, Georgia State and Delaware. They also (also!) have a mid-60s RPI and overall and nonconference strength of schedule numbers that both rank outside the top 200. Still, though, it's hard not to be impressed by a team with a 25-2 record since Dec. 10, no matter the competition. That's an incredible mark, perhaps second in mid-majordom only to Murray State's ridiculous season. And many of the same arguments that have applied to Murray State -- "they can only win the games on their schedule!" and so on -- might just as well apply here. The arguments will rage hot and bright, but hey: It wouldn't be the first week of March without a good argument about a mid-major at-large team. Stay tuned.