Tuesday Morning Notes (2/12) - Virginia Bounces back and Changes on the Bubble

There was a very light schedule in College Basketball last night but still a couple results were note worthy, and one game in particular had an important impact on my projected field:

• Virginia had an impressive bounce back from their home loss to Duke Saturday by beating North Carolina at Chapel Hill last night.  Virginia still finds itself behind Tennessee on the S-Curve, but opened up some breathing room between themselves and the 4th ranked 1 Seed Gonzaga.  Duke, Tennessee and Virginia are building resume's that are making it increasingly likely they will find themselves on the Top Line come selection Sunday.
• Kansas' road win at TCU last night moved them past Purdue on the S-Curve, but both remain 3 Seeds.  A Michigan State loss to Wisconsin tonight though could allow Kansas to sneak into the 2-Seed line.
• The most notable outcome from last night was the impact on the bubble resulting from Oklahoma's loss at Baylor.   With the loss, Oklahoma falls 3-9 in the Big 12.  No team has ever qualified as an At-Large team with a regular season conference record more than 2 games below .500.  Until the NCAA takes a 7-11 (or 8-12) At-Large team, I continue to consider 8-10 or 9-11 as the cut line for At-Large consideration.  Oklahoma would have to go 5-1 over their last 6 regular conference games to keep from falling below that marker.  Given the way they are playing and the remaining schedule they have left, which includes road games at Iowa State and current Conference leader Kansas State and a home match-up with Kansas, it seems implausible to me that they can avoid losing at least 2 more conference games to keep them in serious consideration.  I move them out and into the Next 4 Out grouping.  
• Speaking of teams that I moved into the 'Next 4 Out' grouping, Indiana, finds themselves in a similar situation to Oklahoma.   Indiana is currently 4-9 in the Big Ten.  The Big Ten now plays 20 Conference games, so winning 9 seems to be the minimum conference games a Big Ten team would need to get for at large consideration.  Indiana would have to finish no worse than 5-2 over their 7 remaining conference games to be considered.  They have a little more opportunity to get back into consideration.  However this is a team that has lost 9 of their last 10 and now have a 5 game stretch starting tonight at Minnesota that is followed with games against Purdue, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan State.  Not impossible, but I consider it unlikely that they could go 3-2 during that stretch.  As such, they are on life support for At-Large consideration and moved into the 'Next 4 Out' tier of bubble teams.
• The biggest beneficiary of Oklahoma's loss and my decision to move Indiana out of the 'First Team' out classification is VCU.  I now have them in as the last At-Large team.

Planning on my next full projection to be published Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening.