It’s finally March and that means tournament time in college basketball.  It also means teams across the country are sweating out life inside the bubble, and whether or not they will get a coveted invite to the NCAA tournament.  Every game becomes almost a do-or-die proposition.

The final at-large bids in the tournament field are typically seeded either 11th or 12th every year meaning they would square off against a 5- or 6-seed in the first round.  AccuScore pitted eight teams squarely on the bubble against two teams that are representative of a likely first-round opponent in Marquette and Purdue.  This was done in order to measure the chances these teams could potentially win a game should they receive a bid to the Big Dance.

Today we have a mid-major team looking to avoid a massive upset in its conference tournament tonight:

Davidson
Southern Conference
25-6 overall; 22-0 in conference
RPI:    32
SOS:   129

Davidson is right where everybody thought they would be: in the SoCon tournament final.  An unlikely opponent will await them in Elon which finished just seventh in league play and is 14-18 on the year.  A loss would seem unlikely as the Wildcats have run roughshod over its conference mates this year, but the two games these teams played previously were close affairs with Davidson pulling out a 2-point win on the road while winning by 10 at home.

The Cats are the heavy favorite tonight, but if the unthinkable happens would they have proven enough to get in the NCAA field as an at-large?  They are clearly the best team in the SoCon, but a loss may cripple any hope for an invitation.  The fact that Elon reached the final rather than either Chattanooga or Georgia Southern, both of whom tied for second in league play, will hurt the Cats’ tournament profile even further. 

Davidson showed very well early in the year in a tough nonconference schedule narrowly losing to North Carolina, Duke, Charlotte, UCLA, and North Carolina State.  Despite competing well in those games however, the team still lost each game and was only 2-6 in DI nonconference games.  The best win was over Big South champion Winthrop in the Bracket Buster event.  Rolling through conference play and staying close with several elite teams clearly shows that Davidson would be one of the best 34 teams available should they lose tonight.  What is highly debatable is whether or not it would have one of the 34 best tournament profiles.  Wildcat fans will have to hope Stephen Curry and company leave out the guesswork and take care of business against Elon.