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USATSI

Saturday was a day for celebrating some big wins for teams on the bubble. Sunday was more about the losses.

Rutgers was on a fantastic four-game winning streak against ranked teams and was trying to make it five at Purdue on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Scarlet Knights came up short in an 84-72 loss to the Boilermakers. Rutgers sits at 80 in the NET, and while that metric is not really used decisively, it would be the worst ranking in any NCAA metric for an at-large team since before 1994, when I started tracking the data. Despite the good number of Quad 1 wins, at the moment, the negatives weigh larger.

Michigan also lost on Sunday. The Wolverines were defeated at Wisconsin 77-63 and are now just 14-11. Only one team has received an at-large bid in a pre-pandemic tournament that finished fewer than four games above .500. That team was Georgia in 2001, which played a schedule that no team now can touch. That four-games above .500 mark is not criteria, but when nobody worse than that is getting in, it is hard to ignore.

Our double-bubble game on Saturday gave us SMU beating Memphis at home by a score of 73-57. The Mustangs now have a season sweep of the Tigers and have moved out of the First Four for now. Memphis is still among the last four teams in the bracket today, but their margin for error is smaller now.

Two of the sport's bigger names try to stay in the hunt for a spot in the field

Here are the bubble teams in action Monday. All times Eastern

Check out all the teams on Palm's Bubble Watch, the field of the 68 and the entire bracket on the Bracketology hub  

Other bubble teams in action
N. Carolina
vs. Louisville, 7 p.m. | ESPN, fuboTV (Try for free) -- UNC followed up its worst loss of the season by winning at Virginia Tech. That is nice, for what it's worth, but the Hokies are not a tournament team. In fact, none of the teams that the Tar Heels have defeated are in Monday's bracket with Michigan falling out. This is a game that can only do further damage to North Carolina's chances.
Indiana
at Ohio State, 7 p.m. | FS1, fuboTV (Try for free) -- Indiana's tournament profile has a lot of problems, beginning with a very poor non-conference schedule. The Hoosiers are also poor away from home and are a game below .500 against Quads 1-3. They can address some of those issues tonight by completing a season sweep of the Buckeyes in Columbus, Ohio.
Loyola Chi.
at Illinois State, 8 p.m. | ESPN+ -- Loyola lost again over the weekend to Drake, which is its first Quad 3 loss. The Ramblers may be able to lose again before the conference tournament if it still harbors at-large aspirations. They surely cannot take the Quad 4 loss that this could be.
San Fran.
at Pacific, 9 p.m. -- The one real blight on the San Francisco tournament profile is a loss at home to Portland. Pacific is about 100 spots lower in the NET than the Pilots. The Dons' chances of getting an at-large bid with two Quad 4 losses are almost zero.