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On the Bubble


To be considered "on the bubble", you must be waiting to find out if a player or team has made the final spots in a tournament or on any given sports team roster. On the bubble is most commonly associated with the Men's college basketball or Women's college basketball for the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. When you are considered to be on the bubble in the NBA or NFL it means you are being considered for one of the last few positions on the roster. For those NCAA tournament the teams that are on the bubble, their names are usually released by ESPN College Basketball; with the list being updated every few days. The table that ESPN releases consists of eight teams with four of them being in the First Four in and the Last four teams out of the tournament. Many College Basketball teams pay very close attention to the Bubble in late February and early March right before the NCAA tournament begins.

On the bubble is most popular when talking about the Men's and Women's end of the season tournament. When it comes down to Selection Sunday at the end of the season there are about five to six teams that are on the bubble of getting in the tournament each and every season. When a team is on the bubble, and they do get into the tournament they are most commonly placed as the 11th seed and will often play another team that was on the bubble in the first game of the tournament as a Play-in game. If a team that is considered to be on the bubble they are almost always one of the top seeds in the National Invitation Tournament which consists of all the teams that just weren't quite good enough to be in the NCAA Tournament.

To be considered on the bubble there are quite a few different things that have to play out during the season. First of all, you must have to have a record that is respectable. What the Selection Committee looks at when deciding between the five or six bubble teams each year is Strength of schedule, top 50 wins, and top 100 wins. What hurts the bubble teams that are trying to get into the tournament is a bad loss to a team that is below 150. Each and every year there is at least one or two bubble teams that don't make it into the NCAA tournament that were expected to by college basketball analyst. During the tournament it is very rare to see Bubble teams make a deep run in the tournament, but there have been a few Cinderella teams.


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