Monday Update (3/4)

Lots of upheaval this past week, with 6 new teams in the field, 6 removed, 4 new teams under consideration for an at-large bid, and 3 now no longer under consideration.

• Virginia Tech made the biggest move up with their win at home against Duke, securing the one thing previously missing from an otherwise solid resume' ... a win against a top 10 team.
• Temple dropped two seed lines and 8 spots on the S-Curve.  A loss to Memphis didn't help, nor did big wins by VCU, UCF, Texas and Auburn who passed them.  A closer look at the Owl's resume' led me to drop them a bit as well, though I still like them better than most other mock bracketeers do.
• UCF was by far the biggest surprise this past week as they sprang into the field, and all but locked up a bid with the most impressive win of the week in College Basketball when they won at Houston Saturday.  Likewise, Utah State may have come close to punching their ticket with a huge home win over Nevada to move into first in the Mountain West Conference.
• The very bottom of the bubble is very difficult for me to sort out, especially not knowing exactly how the committee is going to use the new NET rankings and Quad systems to evaluate teams.  I reluctantly included Georgetown as the last team in this week, but I'm not comfortable with it.  Having said that, I have almost resigned myself to the idea that a Power Conference team 4 games below .500 in their own league is likely to get in this year (Oklahoma, despite another conference loss this past week) and another is making a strong statement to get there, as Indiana spent the week throwing monkey wrenches in Wisconsin and Michigan State's seed aspirations.  
• Several Conference tournaments start this week, and I will be back tomorrow with a look at some of the mid-major tournaments kicking off this week that could provide us our first potential bid thieves by the end of the weekend.  Those thieves may be our best hope to squeeze out some of the drek that could make the tournament otherwise.  

This update is complete through games played on Sunday, March 3rd.  I intended to send it this morning, but internet issues delayed it until this evening, meaning it will probably be obsolete in 3 hours.  Given that disclaimer, here it is ... such that it is: