Spotlight Firmly On Indiana in Tonight's Bubble Watch Schedule
Welcome to your midweek Bubble Watch. A day after UConn, Ole Miss, and even Michigan State were your big winners, let’s take a look at tonight’s slate of important games for teams who don’t want to have their bubble burst.
As a friendly reminder, there are three categories of games - Bubblicious, Resume Enhancing, and Bubble Games. It’s a light night with only four games of importance, none bigger than a Big 10 showdown between Indiana and Rutgers.
Bubblicious - Two bubble teams squaring off in an ultra-important game. These could feature teams inside the latest Bracketology predictions or those outside them. Or both. Either way, it’s teams who have not played themselves into LOCK status just yet.
There are no games in this category tonight.
Resume Enhancing - A bubble team taking on a team right now that is solidly in the field of 68, creating a chance for a quality win to improve a team’s resume.
Indiana vs Rutgers - 8 pm Big 10 Network
Indiana lost its last outing to Michigan State (welcome to the Bubble Sparty) and now sits at 12-10, 7-8 in the league, with their NCAA NET Ranking falling to 54. Rutgers is ranked 31 in the NET and has four Quad 1 wins, so they are firmly in the Dance. An Indiana win and they would equal the Scarlet Knights in that category and improve their NET Ranking. A loss, and well, that might make Saturday’s home game with Michigan a must-win for Archie Miller’s squad.
Bubble Games - These games pit a team on the Bubble playing a non-Bubble team, who can ill-afford a conceived “bad” loss. The “bubble” team is listed first.
St. Bonaventure at Davidson - 5 pm ESPN+
The Bonnies climbed to an 11-seed in Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology release with a 69-58 win over Davidson on Saturday. The return match at Davidson is tonight. This is only St. Bonaventure’s 15th game of the season. They are 11-3 (9-3 in the Atlantic 10) and can stay tied with VCU with a win.
Seton Hall at Butler - 7 pm CBSS
The Pirates are coming off a sloppy loss at Georgetown on Saturday and would love nothing to right the ship before a key home date with UConn on March 3. An 11-seed with a NET of 51, Seton Hall deserves their 11-seed as of today, but now is not the time to go on a losing streak.
UNC vs Marquette - 7 pm ESPN2
With a huge resume-enhancing opportunity with Florida State coming to town on Saturday, what did Roy Williams do with an open date? He filled it with Marquette. Just like he did with Northeastern last week. Let’s give Roy Williams credit. He is giving his team games they can win to boost their resume.