(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

With just a few days until Selection Sunday, much of the bracket is set. Outside of the upcoming Ivy League championship, no other mid-major conference tournament is likely to influence the at-large bids, with perhaps the exception of Middle Tennessee.

Though some teams are essentially locked into the field because of their strong resumes, which teams have the most ability to fluctuate in seeding?

You can look at many and say, “Yeah, that’s a tourney team,” but also simultaneously be unsure of where that team may concretely be seeded. I have projections and ideas, but with how open-ended the criteria for seeding is, that leaves room for intrigue when looking at a select few cases.

Multi-bid conferences

What makes West Virginia so hard to judge?

The Mountaineers had a stellar…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Power conferences understandably dominate discussion, particularly Bubble Watch talk, this time of year. All the teams fighting in the middle, yearning for resume-supplementing wins, provide some of the most notable matchups and storylines.

However, it’s worth pausing and noting some of the more under-the-radar seasons in the country, especially the programs that we are trending toward hearing about in March. I can think of few teams more deserving of that mention than Marshall.

The Thundering Herd are 20-6, a standout record on its own but even more notable when recognizing this is the first time since the 2016 season they have eclipsed the 20-win mark and just the second time since they left the Southern Conference in 1997. This is West Virginia native Kim Caldwell’s first season at the helm in Huntington. She led her alma mater, DII Glenville State, for seven seasons, including a national championship in 2022. In her first foray as a head coach at the highest level of collegiate basketball, something special is brewing.

Find it your local newspaper #WeAreMarshall

With conference tournaments tipping off across the country, we’re soon going to have a clearer idea of what the NCAA Tournament bracket will look like. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves … because with parity across conferences seemingly at an all-time high (we say this every year, no?) there are sure to be some surprises.

In our first college version of Getting Technical, The Athletic’s women’s basketball writers Sabreena Merchant and Chantel Jennings discuss what’s ahead this March.

Sabreena: It’s finally March, Chantel, and I think the question everyone has on their minds with the start of the tournaments is: Can anyone challenge South Carolina?

Chantel: While I still have the Gamecocks as my national championship pick, I’m slightly less confident than I was a few months ago. The last few weeks have given teams a bit of a roadmap in how to play South Carolina close. Ole Miss pushed the Gamecocks into overtime, UConn (with six bodies) drove them to the brink. Yes, those teams couldn’t finish the job. But could another in March?

The physical matchup against South Carolina is always going to be the problem and specifically with how well Kamilla Cardoso has played lately, and pairing her with Aliyah Boston, there just aren’t many teams nationally that…