(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.)

As Conference tournament week winds down, the number of automatic qualifiers and at-large bids continue to dwindle. Though the bids won’t be doled out until Selection Sunday, looking at every resume case by case gives us a pretty good idea of who’s in, who’s out and a small gray area that’s up in the air: The Bubble.

Mississippi State provides us one of the most significant cases to delve into when looking at how the selection committee makes decisions, and in turn, how I build the bracket with that in mind.

I currently have the Bulldogs slated as one of the first teams projected outside the tournament, and they’re one of the teams that has tested my understanding of what the committee is looking at the most. Why? Let me explain.

Multi-bid conferences

What’s the NET…

(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.)

For the first, and likely not the last, time this week, the bubble has burst. The Portland Pilots are going dancing, securing the automatic qualifying bid by winning the West Coast Conference tournament. Portland was solid this season, finishing a respectable third in the conference behind Santa Clara and Gonzaga.

Gonzaga had been projected in the field and looked like a lock to host for much of the season, with a stellar nonconference run and dominance in the WCC. The Zags beat Portland by 21 the first time they met and defeated Portland 90-40 just two weeks ago. Now Portland walks out with a trip to March Madness with a 1-point victory over the Bulldogs.

This is what March is all about. Everything we think we know can change in an instant.

Multi-bid conference

What does…

We’ve reached the end of the regular season for all major conferences, and if you — like me — thought that was going to bring more clarity about the hierarchy within college basketball, those hopes have not come to fruition. The seeding jumble is as chaotic as ever, and on a night-to-night basis, only South Carolina can reliably be counted upon to emerge with a victory.

How about those Gamecocks? They completed a second consecutive undefeated regular season, and the year before that featured only one regular-season defeat. They have cycled through multiple starting lineups over the past few weeks, experimenting with different combinations of their nine-player rotation, and have still been as dominant as ever. They have a target on their back every night as opponents try to be the first to slay the giant, and they continue to excel, time and time again.

Oh, and they managed to facilitate a reunion between Kamilla Cardoso and her mom and sister, as she was able to play in front of them for the first time in the U.S. since immigrating as a teenager.

Family over everything @kamillascsilva pic.twitter.com/Qh1opAgli0

— South Carolina Women’s Basketball (@GamecockWBB) March 2, 2024

Even though South Carolina didn’t win the national title in 2023, it’s hard to look back…

March is four days away, and that means it’s banner time.

Sure, the banners we most often think of are for the Final Four or the national championship, but within the next week, programs will celebrate regular-season conference titles. Listen to most coaches, and that’s the goal heading into the season: win the conference and the rest will come.

Plenty of teams around the country have already clinched their regular-season crowns, including Chattanooga, Fairfield, Florida Gulf Coast, Gonzaga, High Point, Middle Tennessee, Southern Indiana and UConn. These titles don’t guarantee automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament, but they commemorate successful seasons and deserve some shine before we make our way into the madness. This week’s power rankings will take stock of the conference title races in the major conferences.

Let’s take a look at how the conference races stand heading into the final weeks of the season:

Dropped: West Virginia (23), Princeton (25)

Almost famous: Ole Miss, Princeton, West Virginia

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Unsurprisingly, the Gamecocks have the SEC locked up, three games ahead of the field with two to play. It is South Carolina’s third consecutive SEC title and potentially its second straight undefeated conference season, joining Auburn and Tennessee as the only programs to…

Jordan Pope’s rainbow 3-pointer seemed to hang in the air forever before finally falling through the basket as the buzzer sounded.

Oregon State 83, No. 9 Arizona 80.

Pac-12 Network commentator Bill Walton yelled out. Beavers fans flooded the Gill Coliseum court. A top-10 upset pulled by their men’s basketball team on Jan. 25 was a rare moment of reprieve and celebration after the community weathered five hard months since the near-dissolution of the Pac-12, capped by football coach and alumnus Jonathan Smith leaving for Michigan State. Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes, who was at the Arizona game, made sure to take in the moment.

“In times like this, it helps you understand what you’re trying to achieve,” Barnes told The Athletic the next day.

Ghdskjfghrsiretnaioenfkalsdjfads#GoBeavs pic.twitter.com/Ox8aqhILPF

— Oregon State Hoops (@BeaverMBB) January 26, 2024

Barnes and Washington State athletic director Pat Chun have said many times that there’s no manual for the path they’ve taken since Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah decided to jump to the Big 12 and Oregon and Washington chose to follow USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the only remaining Pac-12 representatives beyond this summer. Barnes joked that…

This was one of the most dramatic weeks of the college basketball season thus far. NC State lost its first game almost at the buzzer, as Elizabeth Kitley hit a game winner for Virginia Tech with 0.9 seconds to play. Oregon State lost its first contest despite having the ball while down 2 with 15 seconds left. Arizona had a chance to upset Colorado, but freshman Breya Cunningham came up just short. The Wildcats found themselves in a similar situation two days later against Utah, this time prevailing thanks to Kailyn Gilbert drawing two free throws with 1.1 seconds remaining in overtime.

Oh, and Caitlin Clark hit the shot of the season as she squared up from the logo as time expired against Michigan State to give the Hawkeyes their 11th straight win. It brought back memories of her buzzer-beater to defeat Indiana last February, though the degree of difficulty of that shot — combined with the fact Iowa was trailing when Clark put it up — means Clark has some work to do to surpass that moment. She’ll have a chance when the Hawkeyes host the Hoosiers on Saturday in what could be the game of the week.

Before we get to the rankings and some more superlative individual performances from a truly enjoyable seven days of games, best wishes to NC State’s River Baldwin, UConn’s

Hello, strangers. It has been a minute since you’ve seen me here, tossing around my ideas about the top 25. But with Sabreena Merchant focusing on the WNBA Draft Lottery (and subsequent mock draft), I was called up from the reserves to weigh in on this week’s power rankings.

Sunday saw a trio of games in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase that were well worth the price of admission. Though I was impressed with all three teams that came away with wins (South Carolina, UCLA and UConn), I was also impressed with the teams that lost. Chalk up all three as quality losses in my eyes, with those teams moving up in the rankings this week. (Hello, Utah, Florida State and North Carolina.)

But I also had my eye on other games this week as league play got underway in a few conferences. I’d imagine it’s a precursor for what’s in store: excellent matchups. Ohio State required overtime to take care of business against Penn State, Wisconsin showed up to watch Caitlin Clark do her thing (beat up the Badgers), and Washington took down Washington State.

Sabreena still submitted her AP poll, and though I used her previous power rankings as a jumping-off point, I had my own opinions on some teams and where they should be placed. If you hate them, fear not, Sabreena will be back…

A month into the 2023-24 season, 20 undefeated teams (out of 360) remain in Division I after Stanford and George Mason fell from the ranks Sunday. It comes as little surprise to see preseason darlings such as South Carolina and UCLA among the unbeatens. Teams such as NC State and USC, who welcomed high-profile freshmen, have succeeded earlier than might have been expected, but they aren’t huge shocks, either.

The statistic that’s a bit of an eye-opener is that six of these 20 undefeated squads come from one conference, and it’s not one of the conferences that often gets brought up as the best in the country. Not the SEC, the Pac-12 or the Big Ten. In fact, it’s the Big 12 racking up the most wins to start the year.

In addition to Texas and Baylor — which were expected to be the class of this league — Texas Tech, TCU, West Virginia and UCF have avoided defeat to this point. The Longhorns and the Bears boast resume-boosting wins against UConn and Utah. The other four don’t have wins over ranked teams yet, but TCU beating Nebraska, UCF defeating Auburn, and Texas Tech’s win over Rutgers are quality victories to build on. West Virginia gets a chance for a Power 5 prove-it game Monday against Penn State. That quartet hasn’t quite cracked this pollster’s top 25,…

Filling out the women’s NCAA Tournament bracket is fun, sure. But with betting lines included, the stakes are raised and it’s a whole other ballgame — even if you’re sure of the winner, you can still pick against the spread. Last year, I had a hard time finding lines for the women’s tournament. This year, the information was much more available. I took all info into account — stats, schedules, personnel matchups, strengths and weaknesses — as I began the arduous task of analyzing each pick and selecting game winners. (And I reminded myself, more than once, not to overthink it.)

If you’re unfamiliar with betting numbers, the general idea is you subtract whatever the number is from the score, and that should make it even. So “South Florida -1.5” means the Hurricanes should win by two against Marquette. The .5 allows you to pick a side, so there are no ties. In short, the team with the “-” number next to it is giving the other team that much of a lead in this figurative world. If “PK” is listed, it means the teams are rated even strength and it’s a straight win or loss pick.

My picks for the first round are based against the spread, not straight-up winners. Check back, as I’ll have subsequent picks for every round of the tournament.

Friday

No. 9…

The women’s NCAA Tournament is finally here, and across the country some of the sport’s biggest stars will get the opportunity to showcase their talent on the biggest possible stage. But before the tournament fully gets underway, our women’s college basketball reporters at The Athletic wanted to see who could put together the best possible March Madness fantasy team. Each team consisted of six players, a coach and a mascot. Prior to the draft we laid out the following rules:

• Each player, coach or mascot needed to be part of this year’s 68-team field. (Sorry, Aneesah Morrow.)

• Each team needed to have representation from at least one mid-major school.

• Schools could not be reused, meaning once a player was picked all other members of that university (and very importantly, that university’s mascot) were wiped from the draft pool.

We utilized a snake draft, and Ben Pickman was awarded the first pick by winning our draft lottery (being closest to a random number selected by our editor, Shannon Ryan.) Sabreena Merchant picked second, followed by Chantel Jennings.

Comment below or respond to our Twitter poll to let us know who you think won the draft.

Round 1

Pick No. 1

Ben: Caitlin Clark, Iowa

The Athletic’s Player of the Year and the best offensive player in college…