There was a lot of blood spilled on the early developing bubble stage this weekend. Per the Bracket Matrix, four consensus at large bids on the 12 line lost. As did an 11 seed, a 10 seed and three of the top eight teams on the outside looking. The goalposts near the cut line were shifted as bracketologists weighed the weekend’s results. As the latest straw poll results came pouring in teams like Colorado, Central Florida and Miami faded from prime spots and out of the bracket, replaced by Memphis, UCLA and Virginia Commonwealth. The blood letting continued on both edges of the bubbles last night with losses by Georgia, a consensus 9-seed, Virginia Tech, an 11-seed, Marquette, an 11-seed and Colorado and Dayton, the seventh and eighth-to-last teams out of the Bracket Matrix. Obviously, since its still January, this whole shibang remains a fluid situation. As we move closer to the final weekend of the month, let’s take a quick look at some of the game’s tonight that will impact the ever-forming NCAA Bubble
St. John’s at Georgetown, 7:00, EPSN 3/ESPN Full Court. Line, GTown -9
St. John’s loss to Cincinnati last Saturday might have been the most painful defeat for any bubble contender on the weekend. By missing more free throws than they made (13 to 12), the Johnnies gave away a game in a 1-point home loss to the Bearcats. It was St. John’s fourth loss in five games as their Big East schedule ratchets up in difficulty. And, 
their heartbreaker to Cincy combined with a blowout at the hands of Louisville earlier in the week, finally netted some payback with the Bracketology crowd. The Johnnies are still firmly in the bracket as 36 of 41 pollsters have them in their field, but the’ve fallen from a 6th seed to a 9th seed in one week and saw the number of mocks excluding them from the field increase from two to five. The going continues to get tougher for St. John’s. Tonight, they travel to Georgetown, a Matrix 5th seed. The Hoyas are on the upswing after a pair of road league wins last week paced by Austin Freeman’s conference player of the week efforts as he finally showed the game that made him a preseason conference player of the year contender. On Sunday, the Johnnies host Duke in the Garden. That’s the rub for St. John’s the rest of the way. They’ll have plenty of chances for resume wins from here on out. But how many more failures in those games can they endure before they’re on the wrong side of the bubble? Bottomline: St. John’s candidacy will be a tight one all winter. If they fall short of the bracket on Selection Sunday, they’ll rue the day in January when they were ice cold at the charity stripe.
North Carolina at Miami, 7:30, ESPN 2. Line, UNC -1
It’s really the same old story for Miami. They look good enough through early January to inspire hopes for an NCAA berth, but eventually they lack enough flair and playmaking to survive the ACC rigors and a weak league showing slowly, but surely squashes their hopes for the Big Dance. This season, a nice 11-3 mark with good looking wins over West Virginia and Ole Miss and a nailbiting loss at Memphis has given way to January ACC blues. A 1-4 mark this month in conference play has pushed the Canes not only to the bottom of the league standings, but out of their early spot in the bracket projections. They lost a pair of 2-point games at home to Florida State and on the road to NC State. Those results, as tight as they were, carried some bracketology consqeuences. The Canes fell from a 12-seed with 23 votes to sixth-from-last out of the field with just 10 votes. They’ll look to currty some of that favor back when they host the Tar Heels this evening. UNC appears to have put last year’s blues behind them, and are a solid, consensus 5th seed in the latest matrix projections. But, as their 20-loss in Atlanta to a bad Georgia Tech team a week ago proved, its that we’re still not dealing with a vintage UNC outfit. If the Canes can take advantage of that and snare a rare win for them over UNC, then they could find themselves on the correct side of the bubble again during the next straw poll.
Texas at Oklahoma State, 7:30, ESPN. Line, Texas -4.5
When we last saw the Lonhghorns, they were busy snapping the nation’s longest winning streak and taking down top ranked Kansas in Lawrence. Do they have another big effort in a notoriously challenging road venue in them? If they do, and they beat Oklahoma State tonight in Stillwater, it wont resonate nationally the way their win over the Jawhawks did. But, unlike that upset, it would create some ripples on the bubble. Oklahoma State is just barely hanging on in the consensus Matrix. After being run off the floor by Baylor in Waco over the weekened, the Cowboys have fallen to a projected 11 seed and, what’s worse, one quarter of the 41 mocks have left them out of the field. Expect some of that support to whither further if they cant beat the Horns tonight in Stillwater. Their perimeter defense has been trending downward, and the Pokes continue to struggle identifying a go-to scorer with James Anderson not on campus anymore. Can the Cowboys get one of the seven wins they need the rest of the way conventioanl wisdom says they need to make the NCAAs over the hot Horns tonight? If so, then their spot solidfies. If not, then they’ve missed out on a golden chance for a resume win on their home floor.
Northwestern at Minnesota, 8:30, Big 10 Network. Line, Minny -5
If Northwestern’s goal on Sunday was to look so bad that no bracketologist in their right mind would even put them in their mythical final cut group, then mission accomplished. The Cats were non competitive on the defensive end as the Badgers routed the Cats at Welsh Ryan Arena, keeping Northwestern from earning that league resume win that had been eluding them thus far in the winter. The good news? The game was over quickly. Folks were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when close calls came up short against the likes of Michigan State and Illinois, and the Cats entered the weeekend among the pack in the final cut list. But now they are way off the radar. Remarkably, one blogger remains in Northwestern’s camp, while the other three votes they’re still holding on too come from folks who have not cast a ballot since the weekend’s results. If Northwestern wants to break into the NCAAs for the first time ever, they need a rally and they need to start it fast. They are still looking for their first upset, resume win of the season. No better way to start than going on the road against the Gophers, a current consensus 5th seed in the Matrix.
Iowa at Penn State, 6:30, Big 10 Network. Line, PSU -7.5
Are the Big 10′s hopes for a seventh bid into the NCAAs resting with a 10-8 club? It sure looks like it. Northwestern 
cant buy a resume win and was just smoked by Wisconsin. Michigan has seen their solid out of conference defense wither in conference play as January has been kinder to past Big 10 football champions than it has to the Wolverine hoopsters, who are skidding on a six-game losing streak. With Iowa and Indiana also out of the at large mix, that leaves it up to Penn State and the Fighting Ed DeChellis’s to pull in another invite for the league. Considering they’re just 10-8 and have a bad loss to Maine on their resume, it seems like a longshot. But the Nits have really made bigtime waves in their last 4 starts: home wins over Michigan State and Illinois followed by nip and tuck losses on the road to Ohio State and Purdue by a combined 4 points. Despite their meager overall record and current losing mark (3-4) in the Big 10, the Nittany Lions are more than on the radar of Bracketologists. Three of them already have them in the field, including one that puts them in the field over Gonzaga and Tennessee. Lunardi at ESPN puts Penn State in his second group of 4 to miss the cut and the Lions have found themselves on another’s watchlist for the upcoming weeks. If the Lions can get people to notice them with a measly 10-8 mark, what happens if they can spruce up their record? Tonight’s home game with Iowa gives them a chance to do that, while a home date with Wisconsin over the weekend gives them a chance for another resume pelt in Big 10 play. If they sweep this week, their record will still be a pedestrian looking 12-8. But, can any other bubble team in the country compare with Penn State’s statement wins in league play?
UCF at Memphis
Before last weekend, there were three Conference USA teams amid the first eight teams left out of the consensus Bracket Matrix making that part of the pecking order look like a pre-Christmas Day college football bowl schedule than anything else. But, the weekend’s carnage took a bite out of the league’s hopes. Southern Miss lost at home to SMU, causing the Eagles to lose every ounce of the support, which had had them in the surprising position of being the last team cut from the Bracket Matrix a week ago. Memphis beat UAB in Birmingham in a game between the other league schools on the final cut list. As a result, Memphis moved into the week’s Matrix, where they are a 13 seed, while UAB, like the Golden Eagles lost all of their support. The biggest news for the conference was yet another loss by the UCF Golden Knights. The Knights had been sitting pretty as a 7th seed in the Matrix as most bracketologists slated them in the field with the league’s automatic bid. The problem with that is their defeat over the weekend was their fifth in league play. Can a mock bracketologist have any credibility handing out an automatic bid to a team that is 1-4 in league play? I guess not as most mocked knocked the Knights from their field. They were undefeated at the start of January, gaining steam as a trendy March darkhorse and had unanimous support among the mock brackets. Heading into the final weekend of the month, they’ve dropped four games in row, are tied for last place and are down to bare bones support among the mocks with just 10 bloggers putting them in the current field. Can the Knights reverse this trend? Of course they cant. There is plenty of time left. And, January ends with a big stretch of games at Memphis tonight, hosting UAB on Saturday and at UTEP–current co-leader with Memphis–next week. Two wins out of those three might reinvigorate all the support they’ve been losing in recent days.
