Crunch time of the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season has officially arrived, with about 50 days until the power-conference tournaments tip off — even sooner for the mid-majors — and only a little longer than that before Selection Sunday on March 16. That means it’s time to track which teams are on course to make the NCAA tournament, continuing the fine tradition of Bubble Watch here at ESPN. We’ll be launching that column in full force starting on Feb. 4, but right now we want to give a preview of which teams are probably safe and which ones should be worried about their tourney status down the stretch of the regular season.

As usual for Bubble Watch, we’ll break teams down by conference into categories based on their projected NCAA tournament status. This year, however, we’ll be largely basing the categories on ESPN Analytics’ BPI forecast, which gives each team a probability to make the tourney after simulating the remainder of the season 10,000 times.

Teams with Lock status have at least a 95% chance to make the tournament according to the BPI forecast. (Yes, this means that 5% of the time, a team marked as a lock will miss the tourney — we set the threshold there as a nod to the traditional standard for significance testing.) A team marked Should Be In has a BPI probability between 70% and 95% — these are teams that, most likely, will get into the field of 68, though their fates are not completely assured yet. And a team with the Work To Do tag is either between 30-70% tourney odds per BPI, is featured in ESPN’s most recent Bracketology column by Joe Lunardi (who, let’s be honest, probably knows better than the algorithm), or has a notable probability across a variety of different tourney models beyond just the BPI forecast. (This is our fail-safe for catching teams that BPI might be too low on.)

As of Tuesday, Jan. 20, there are 19 teams marked as Locks, led by the Duke Blue Devils, Houston Cougars and Auburn Tigers — each effectively at 100%. (I say “effectively” because these probabilities are capped at >99% until a bid is actually clinched.) That leaves 41 more teams in either the Should Be In or Work To Do categories, and these are our bubble schools.

So let’s go conference by conference — in rough order of which conferences project to get the most NCAA bids — and run through who they are, where they stand and what they need to do to boost their odds. We’ll also pick out one school per conference whose odds are close to 50-50, spotlighting them as a true embodiment of our Bubble Watch column, and another team that the various models seem to be confused about right now.

Jump to a conference:
SEC | Big Ten
Big 12 | ACC | Big East
High Mid-Majors | Low Mid-Majors

SEC

Much has been made about how dominant the SEC is this season, and that success will be reflected when the selection committee convenes in mid-March.

Lunardi lists 12 teams from the conference in his bracket forecast as of Jan. 17, and the ESPN Analytics model expects 10.8 SEC squads in the Round of 68. Of those, five are listed as Locks below: Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Kentucky.

The next group won’t take too much else to get to Lock status as well, with Texas A&M, Texas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss all sitting at or above 86% in the ESPN model. The only one of those that might need to pick up extra résumé-boosting wins is Texas, which currently ranks 46th in Strength of Record (SOR) and is 1-6 against BPI top-50 teams.

The rest of the SEC’s eventual tourney crop will come from the true bubble group of Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and (maybe) Vanderbilt. On talent alone, the Razorbacks should not have to fight their way out of this group, but coach John Calipari’s team is 61st in SOR and desperately needs to halt its recent losing streak. The key among this batch of teams is that they still play plenty of games against each other, so some team is likely to rise to the top over the next few weeks if it can string together any kind of winning streak — even if it remains unclear exactly which team that will be.

Bubble Watch spotlight:Georgia. The smart odds might be on the Bulldogs to be one of the SEC teams that play their way into the tournament. Despite sitting on the edge of a coin flip in terms of tourney odds, Georgia ranks a decent 35th in BPI, and it has a fairly solid résumé for the committee to scan — the team is 5-4 against BPI top-100 opponents and sits 26th in the NET rankings. Freshman big Asa Newell (15.3 points per game, 6.8 rebounds per game) has made a huge impact so far. Like all SEC squads, he and his teammates will have plenty of chances to show off against top competition coming up.

The Enigma:Vanderbilt. The models are all over the place on the Commodores (15-3), but BPI is much lower on them than the overall meta-forecast average of 57%. Vanderbilt has been up and down in conference play (ranging from losses to Mississippi State and Mizzou to a recent signature win against Tennessee), and it plays a crushing remaining schedule — hardest in the nation by BPI — but it is working from a good early foundation.

Locks (95%+ tourney chance): Auburn (100%), Tennessee (100%), Alabama (100%), Florida (97%), Kentucky (96%)
Should Be In (70-95%): Texas A&M (94%), Mississippi State (90%), Texas (88%), Ole Miss (86%)
Work to Do (30-70%)*: Georgia (54%), Missouri (52%), Arkansas (39%), Oklahoma (39%), Vanderbilt* (24%)
Outside Looking In (1-30%): LSU (21%), South Carolina (3%)

(* — with an allowance for teams that also show up as potentially tourney-worthy in other models beyond the BPI forecast.)

Big Ten

For all of the hoopla around the SEC, the Big Ten isn’t far behind in terms of projected tourney teams; the conference is at 11 in Lunardi’s estimation and 10.1 if we add up the BPI projections. That includes four Locks — Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan — though maybe their comparative lack of buzz has to do with the fact that none of the Big Ten’s squads is tracking for an especially high seed: Illinois is highest in the BPI forecast with an average seed of 3.2.

However, there is strong consensus that many Big Ten schools are bound for the tournament in some shape or form. In BracketMatrix‘s aggregation of different tourney picks, Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon and UCLA were all listed in 100% of the nearly 70 brackets surveyed, with Nebraska and Maryland appearing at least 94% of the time. That doesn’t equate perfectly with tourney probability, mind you, but it does indicate that the Big Ten’s depth — every member of the conference is among Ken Pomeroy’s top 101, and all but a handful are in the top 60 — will yield strong representation in the tourney.

Bubble Watch spotlight:Nebraska. Though the Huskers (12-6) appear in a lot of mock brackets now, they rank 49th in NET after falling to Maryland on Sunday, and face a tougher remaining schedule (35th) than many of their peers on the Big Ten bubble. They will get a chance to improve their 4-6 record against BPI top-100 opponents, though, with a number of their toughest remaining contests coming up at home.

The Enigma:Indiana. This was a team that ranked 17th in the preseason AP poll, but the Hoosiers fell out of the ranking by December and kept hurting their cause with ugly losses. They are 1-4 against top-50 BPI teams, but they are also 13-1 against everyone else, and they do theoretically have the talent to perform down the stretch, which might explain why some models are higher on their chances. But they need signature wins against a brutal future schedule, and they’ve shown little ability to come close against that level of competition yet.

Locks: Illinois (99%), Purdue (98%), Michigan State (96%), Michigan (96%)
Should Be In: Maryland (87%), Wisconsin (87%), Oregon (84%), UCLA (76%), Ohio State (73%)
Work to Do: Nebraska (50%), Northwestern (49%), Penn State (37%), Iowa (36%), Indiana* (25%)
Outside Looking In: USC (14%), Rutgers (5%), Washington (1%), Minnesota (1%)

Big 12

The Big 12 currently ranks third (behind the SEC and Big Ten) in the KenPom conference rankings, potentially ending a streak of three consecutive years as the nation’s toughest conference — and an 11-year streak of finishing either No. 1 or No. 2. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Big 12 will be short on NCAA berths: The BPI forecast projects 8.7 tourney teams for the conference, which would match or even potentially exceed last year’s record of eight teams invited to the Big Dance.

Six of those are virtual locks (Houston, Kansas, Iowa State, Arizona, Texas Tech and Baylor), and a couple more are strong bets to get in (Cincinnati and BYU) — although it’s worth mentioning that the Bearcats and Cougars look a lot better in the BPI model than in the consensus of public models overall. If we carve out a bit more uncertainty there, as well as for Arizona State and UCF — a couple of teams that other models like a lot more than BPI does — that leaves at least six Big 12 schools (Cincinnati, BYU, West Virginia, TCU, ASU and UCF) with a tourney outlook in limbo, plus another that still has some kind of shot (29%) in Utah.

In a lot of these cases, it’s a question of accomplishments versus ability. For instance, the Bearcats have a middling résumé (1-4 vs. top-50 opponents, 4-5 vs. top-100 opponents, 48th in SOR) but a solid BPI (30th); BYU is even more extreme in this regard — the Cougars are 71st in SOR but 33rd in BPI. Meanwhile, WVU is 15th in SOR but 42nd in BPI, and UCF is 33rd in SOR and 67th in BPI. The projections try to balance these factors when they use BPI to simulate future games, and they come to the conclusion that Cincinnati and BYU will probably finish stronger than their conference peers on the bubble, but there’s uncertainty around who else gets in.

Bubble Watch spotlight:West Virginia. Having explained all of that about the BPI forecast, we have to go back to the other projections out there, which tend to be more bullish on the Mountaineers (13-4). The other three forecasts aggregated here all list WVU between 76% and 100% to make the tournament — a huge boost over its 42% BPI odds. Similarly, West Virginia appears in 100% of tourney picks gathered by BracketMatrix, typically ending up with a No. 6 or 7 seed. The No. 30 team in NET still has a number of tough road games coming up, so the Mountaineers’ strong early résumé could look less impressive by Selection Sunday, but our algorithm might be underrating their tourney chances nonetheless.

The Enigma:UCF. The Knights’ 12-5 record overall and near-.500 mark (4-5) against top-100 foes has set them up to control their destiny, particularly since they face an easier schedule (48th hardest nationally) than any of the other Big 12 bubble squads. The only problem is that UCF ranks fourth-to-last in the conference in BPI and is an underdog in eight of its last 14 regular-season games per KenPom. If the Knights play down to those expectations, they’ll fall out of the bubble picture, but they have a chance to prove those doubts wrong.

Locks: Houston (100%), Kansas (100%), Iowa State (100%), Arizona (99%), Texas Tech (96%), Baylor (95%)
Should Be In: Cincinnati (85%), BYU (73%)
Work to Do: West Virginia (42%), TCU (33%), Arizona St.* (11%), UCF* (7%)
Outside Looking In: Utah (29%), Kansas St. (2%), Colorado (2%)

ACC

It’s no secret that the ACC is in a bit of a funk right now. While the conference boasts the No. 1 KenPom team in the country (Duke), led by the nation’s most impressive freshman phenom (Cooper Flagg), the Blue Devils are one of two ACC entries in the AP’s Top 25 poll. The ACC hasn’t garnered more than five tourney berths since 2021 — nor ranked any better than fifth in Pomeroy’s conference ratings since 2020 — and this season isn’t tracking to change either trend. Lunardi projects the conference to secure five bids (BPI has 4.7), and the ACC is once again No. 5 in the KenPom rankings.

Duke is, of course, a lock. UNC should be in as well, despite its comparative struggles against high-level competition, and Clemson is solid from both a résumé (30th in SOR) and performance (27th in BPI) standpoint. Who else will represent the ACC, though? The really interesting teams to watch are Louisville, Pittsburgh and SMU, with an outside eye on Wake Forest and FSU.

BPI is much lower on the Cardinals than other forecast models, but they’ve rattled off a lot of recent wins, their current résumé would be good enough — they’re 7-5 against top-100 foes and No. 23 in SOR — and their 78th-ranked remaining schedule difficulty is more than manageable, particularly following Tuesday’s win at SMU. And while our model is perhaps too low on Louisville, it’s slightly higher than other forecasts on Pittsburgh, which is 49th in SOR and trending in the wrong direction with its recent losing streak. If we are indeed too low on Louisville and the ACC gets only five tourney teams, that last spot would be down to a fight between SMU and Pitt — who happen to play on Feb. 11.

Bubble Watch spotlight:SMU. The Mustangs unanimously rate just a bit above 50% tournament odds no matter which model we consult, which speaks to their consistent placement around the sweet spot for power-conference teams hoping to snag an at-large tournament bid. SMU is 35th in NET, 39th in KenPom, 40th in SOR and 43rd in BPI, with an 0-3 record against top-50 BPI opponents but a 14-1 mark against everyone else. That makes the Mustangs a pretty archetypal bubble team, with each of their remaining games coming under scrutiny as a litmus test for the committee.

The Enigma:Louisville. Why don’t the Cardinals boast a better tournament probability in the ESPN Analytics forecast? A big part of it has to do with a gap between Louisville’s perceived quality in BPI (41st) versus other ratings; it ranks 29th in Ken Pomeroy’s system and 30th in Bart Torvik’s, by comparison. This filters into the projected schedule going forward, where Louisville faces both SMU and Pitt one more time apiece, along with games against a number of the nonzero tourney probability teams listed below as well. And the robustness of Louisville’s tournament bid makes a big difference to the ACC bubble as a whole, because it determines where the cut line is to get in (and maybe even whether the conference can exceed five bids).

Locks: Duke (100%)
Should Be In: North Carolina (88%), Clemson (83%), Pitt (70%)
Work to Do: SMU (57%), Louisville (49%)
Outside Looking In: Florida State (7%), Wake Forest (6%), NC State (4%), Notre Dame (3%), Stanford (1%)

Big East

Is the Big East in better shape this year than last? On one hand, the conference has fallen from second to fourth in the KenPom rankings, with its top squads down from where they’ve been in the past. (UConn, in particular, has fallen from No. 1 to No. 30 in the KenPom ratings, while Creighton is down from 11th to 37th.) But on the other hand, the Big East will probably improve on last year’s total number of tourney entries (3), with Lunardi projecting four squads in the field of 68 and the BPI odds adding up to 4.5.

UConn and Marquette look like shoo-ins to return; it would have been surprising for either to be in trouble at this stage. St. John’s has also continued its upward trajectory under coach Rick Pitino and ought to join Creighton on the March Madness stage. The Bluejays are 44th in NET and might need a bit more to feel fully solid, but they’re also 31st in SOR with an 8-6 record against top-100 foes. It should be enough to secure a fifth straight tournament appearance for coach Greg McDermott’s team.

But will there be a fifth Big East entry? Barring a disaster for Creighton, that question is up to Villanova and Xavier to help answer. Neither team is at 50% in the BPI model, and the consensus of other forecasts offers little reassurance for either the Wildcats or Musketeers. In terms of résumé boosters, Villanova has two remaining games against Marquette, a trip to UConn and it hosts St. John’s; Xavier hosts UConn, has a pair of Creighton games and will visit St. John’s plus — who else? — Villanova, on Feb. 9.

Bubble Watch spotlight:Villanova. Coach Kyle Neptune’s squad ranks 40th in BPI and has improved from a few ugly early-season performances, but is there enough time to make an NCAA tournament push? The Wildcats currently sit 72nd in SOR, far below many teams with worse tourney odds, and they were listed in exactly zero of the recent projections collected by BracketMatrix. They need to start hunting for upsets against the conference’s top squads — and they can’t afford letdowns like their recent defeat against Xavier, a six-point loss in which they had an average lead of 1.2 points throughout.

The Enigma: None, as of now, in the Big East.

Locks: UConn (98%), Marquette (96%)
Should Be In: St John’s (89%), Creighton (82%)
Work to Do: Villanova (45%), Xavier (30%)
Outside Looking In: Butler (5%), Providence (5%), Georgetown (1%)

High Mid-Majors (WCC, American, Mountain West)

The Mountain West, West Coast and American conferences combined for 10 tourney berths last season — including seven at-large bids. That number might be a bit reduced this year, in a season of unusual strength for power teams at the top of the national rankings; only one team from outside the Power 5 (Gonzaga, at No. 14 in a relative down year by its standards) ranks among the top 25 in KenPom’s ratings at the moment. Because of factors like this, the BPI forecast calls for these high mid-major conferences to collect 5.7 total bids on average this season.

The lone lock among the bunch is Gonzaga out of the WCC, though there’s a strong chance Memphis has done enough to get in from the American as well. (Coach Penny Hardaway’s crew has an impressive résumé, ranking 19th in SOR with a 5-2 record against the BPI top 50 — including its Maui Invitational win against UConn in November — and an 8-3 mark versus the top 100.) Saint Mary’s is also tracking for another WCC bid, though it still has to navigate a comparatively difficult section of its schedule (including two games against the Zags).

The inside track for other high mid-majors belongs to Utah State and San Diego State out of the Mountain West — both are at or above 50% tourney odds, though neither cracks 70% — with conference rivals Boise State, Nevada and New Mexico trailing them. Some of the big uncertainty there comes from a wide-open picture around who will win the MWC title; the BPI forecast lists Utah State as the favorite, but at just 46%. Either way, the model calls for 2.3 tourney bids from the Mountain West, a year after it picked up six.

Bubble Watch spotlight:San Diego State. After losing 79% of their scoring from last season, the Aztecs are down quite a bit from the version that came within a win of the national championship in 2023; now they’re fighting to extend the program’s NCAA tourney appearance streak to five seasons. And unlike some of our other spotlight teams, SDSU doesn’t have a huge gap between its performance and résumé to help fuel predictions of a strong tourney push (it ranks 50th in BPI and 47th in SOR). But the Aztecs are .500 (5-5) against top-100 opponents and don’t have any abysmal losses, depending on how we feel about them getting dominated by New Mexico a few weeks ago. As much as any team in the nation, SDSU must capitalize on all its remaining games against decently well-regarded opponents.

The Enigma:Santa Clara. While our forecast gives the Broncos only a 5% chance to make the tournament, it should be noted that other models range from 24% to 40% tourney odds for Santa Clara. That’s still not amazing, but the Broncos have a road win against the Zags under their belt already — the crown jewel of wins for WCC teams — with three more games left against Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga. Those kinds of top-50 wins will stand out on any mid-major résumé.

Locks: Gonzaga (99%)
Should Be In: Memphis (85%), Saint Mary’s (74%)
Work to Do: Utah State (68%), San Diego St. (50%), Boise St. (36%), Nevada (33%), New Mexico (30%), Santa Clara* (5%)
Outside Looking In (capped at five teams): North Texas (23%), San Francisco (14%), Oregon St. (10%), Colorado St. (10%), UAB (8%)

Low Mid-Majors (Atlantic 10, C-USA, Missouri Valley)

This last group of conferences is traditionally right on the border of who gets an at-large bid. (A season ago, only one of them — the A-10 — got more than its conference champ into the tournament field.) This season, the BPI forecast is calling for 3.3 tourney entries from this group, meaning there’s little daylight for an at-large case to be made out of this group of squads.

Who might buck that trend? VCU has the best tourney odds overall, with 14% of that 52% mark coming from its chance at an at-large bid. But MVC leaders Drake (39th) and Bradley (56th) actually rank higher in SOR than the Rams (60th) do. None have played any top-50 games by BPI, but that trio is a combined 6-5 against top-100 opponents. And then, Liberty has by far the strongest tourney odds of any Conference USA team — though practically all of that is wrapped up in its probability of winning the conference tournament.

Bubble Watch spotlight:VCU. Coach Ryan Odom and the Rams rank 49th in BPI, which normally would be good enough to at least make a run at an at-large tourney bid, but VCU has also lost some close games it shouldn’t have (most notably against Seton Hall in late November and St. Bonaventure on New Year’s Eve). That leaves its résumé stats in a precarious place without many more chances to boost them — VCU’s best remaining game probably comes at Dayton on Feb. 7. This puts pressure on the Rams to win the A-10 title and not have to hope they’re in a multibid league.

The Enigma:Drake. As mentioned above, the Bulldogs rank 39th in SOR — ahead of literally dozens of power-conference programs — and they have a 3-0 record against BPI top-100 opponents. (They beat Vanderbilt, for instance, which just knocked off Tennessee.) While Drake won’t have too many more chances to boost its résumé, it could force the committee to give it a look if it just keeps winning. The question is, can it? In contrast with that gaudy SOR ranking, the Bulldogs are 85th in BPI and have a 2% chance of winning out over the rest of their schedule, despite that slate ranking only 142nd toughest in the nation. That’s why Drake is a great example of a team that would potentially make the tourney if the season ended today but faces an uphill climb to make it in reality.

Locks: None
Should Be In: None
Work to Do: VCU (52%), Bradley (44%), Liberty (42%), Drake (29%), Dayton (24%)
Outside Looking In (capped at five teams): George Mason (23%), MTSU (15%), Louisiana Tech (13%), Murray St (13%), Saint Joseph’s (11%)