With sports sites going into all of this bracketology now that the NCAA tournament is just a week away, Zach and I decided to have some fun with it ourselves. For the record, Zach won the CheapSeats NCAA pool last year and I won it the year before. (While finishing in third last year). So we may know a little thing or two about college basketball.

On this list, we've broken it down into three parts; conference winners and expected conference winners, our locks and our bubble teams. That last set is what you’re all interested in. We ranked the bubbles according to their tourney security at this point, with the top seven teams making it. If there was a disagreement, I mentioned it.

First up, our projected conference winners. (31 Automatic Bids, projected winners in italics)

ACC: North Carolina
America East: Vermont
A Sun: Belmont
A-10: Xavier
Big XII: Kansas
Big East: Georgetown
Big Sky: Weber State
Big South: Winthrop
Big Ten: Ohio State
Big West: Long Beach State
CAA: VCU
C-USA: Memphis
Horizon: Wright State
MAAC: Niagara
MAC: Akron
MEAC: Delaware State
Mid- Con: Oral Roberts
MVC: Creighton
MWC: BYU
Northeast: Central Connecticut
Ohio Valley: E. Kentucky
Pac-10 UCLA
Patriot: Holy Cross
SEC: Florida
Southern: Davidson
Southland: Texas A&M Corpus Christie
Sun Belt: N. Texas
SWAC: Jackson State
WAC: Nevada
WCC: Gonzaga
Ivy: Penn

At Large (34 Spots)

Locks:

Big East(6): Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Marquette, Villanova, Syracuse, Louisville

ACC(5): Virginia, Virginia Tech, Duke, BC, Maryland

Pac-10(4): Wash St., USC, Oregon, Arizona

Big XII(3): Texas A&M, Texas, Texas Tech

SEC(3): Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Big Ten(2): Wisconsin, Indiana

MWC(2): Air Force, UNLV

Horizon: Butler(1)

MVC(1): Southern Illinois

That’s 27 spots locked up, which leaves seven places for bubble teams. Listed with the bubble teams are their wins we consider impressive.

1. Georgia Tech: Purdue, @Memphis, Duke, Florida St, Clemson @ Florida St., BC, UNC
Tech is in barring a loss to Wake Forest. Frankly, unless they get whacked, they should be in no matter what. Of the bubble teams here they have the strongest resume, even with an 8-8 record in the ACC. They’ve shown themselves better than Fla St. and Clemson for sure.

2. Stanford: Texas Tech, @ Virginia, Wash St., USC, UCLA, Oregon
The computers don’t love Stanford, and their case is hurt by just 18 wins. However they’re Stanford, and were the only team to beat Virginia on the road this year. Texas Tech and UCLA are very good wins. A loss in their opening game in Pac-10 will hurt, but they’ll make it barring a couple of really deep runs by other teams.

3. Michigan State: Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois
The Big 10 is so top heavy it’s ridiculous. Michigan State isn’t tremendously impressive, but beating Texas and Wisconsin counts for something. Throw in the fact they’re Michigan State and they’re probably in. Of course, like all these bubble teams, they have to be careful in the first round of their conference tourney and not get blown out in the second round.

4. Florida State: Florida, Providence, V.T., Maryland, @Duke
A big win for the Seminoles over Clemson. It gets them to 20 wins and to 8-9 in the ACC. One more win (over UNC) would make them a NCAA lock, but the committee will probably want to take a seventh team out of the ACC, and their win at Duke will help tremendously. They should make it.

5. Old Dominion: @Georgetown, Drexel, @ Drexel, VCU
Them or Drexel was a big debate between Zach and I. On one hand, Drexel has more impressive out of conference wins. On the other hand, ODU swept Drexel and got a win over CAA winner Virginia Commonwealth. That’s enough to elevate them over their CAA rival, and send them dancing.

6. Arkansas: @ So. Ill, West Va, Oral Roberts, Alabama, @Alabama, @ Vanderbilt, Miss
They’re knock is going to be their 7-9 conference record, but they’ll be helped by sweeping Alabama, winning at Southern Illinois and beating bubble mate West Virginia. If they lose in the first round, they’ll still fall short; if 7-10 won’t cut it in the ACC, it won’t in the SEC, but a win will help them. Two wins and they’re in.

7. West Virginia: UCLA, Nova, De Paul
No team caused more debate between Zach and I than West Virginia. I argued they should be in; a 22 win Big East team with a 10-7 record in conference and a win against one of the top four teams of the country. Zach disagreed, because they don’t have much else aside from that UCLA game. The Mountaineers have a great win, a bad loss (at Cinci) and pretty much nothing else to tilt you either way. He had them out, but since I’m writing this up, I have them in, barely. In the end, they can go from bubble to lock with a win over Louisville. Anything else and they sweat it out.

So right now, West Virginia is the last team in. A blowout loss to Louisville could change that. Same goes for Arkansas. That’s the hope for our next team.

Drexel: @ Nova, @ Syracuse, @ Creighton, @ Vermont
I love Drexel's credentials, and would really want to put them in. Right now it looks bleak. Their out of conference is impressive; in fact it’s the best of any bubble team. The problem is in conference they were swept by ODU and VCU. Had Wright State not pulled off the upset, they’d be the last team in. Unfortunately, I have them as one of the last teams out. The only way they get back in is if Arkansas and West Virginia flame out in their next games, badly.

Purdue: DePaul, Virginia, Mich, Illinois, Mich St, Indiana
A lot of people have Purdue as being in, and I can’t see why they should be in over the teams we’ve got ahead of them. They don’t have a great road win and unlike say, West Virginia or Michigan State, they haven’t beaten a top five team at home. Are they better than Michigan and Illinois? I think so. But that’s not saying much in a weak Big 10 this year.

Kansas State: @ USC, @ Texas
K-State has the numbers but in the worst of the major conferences, and they did almost nothing against good teams this year. Two nice road wins don’t make up for their utter inability to beat the top level teams of the Big 12 (1-5). They’re just not very good.

Clemson: @ ODU, @ Fla St., G.T., BC, @ V.T.
Zach wants them in the field, but we have to disagree here; impressive set of wins or not (and bad break in the ACC tourney), a 7-10 ACC record and their lousy second half record will not get it done. Conference play means something and being three games under .500, even in the ACC, doesn’t cut it.

Michigan: Ill, Purdue, Indiana, Mich. St.
They, Purdue and Illinois have very similar resumes--- the difference, at least Purdue has two nice out of conference wins. The other two don’t. So no tourney bid.

Illinois: Indiana, Michigan, Mich St.
I’ve seen Illinois on a lot of people’s boards as probably getting in and for the life of me, I can’t understand why. They have no out of conference wins, and their in conference wins aren’t impressive. They beat the third best team in the conference at home, which isn’t impressive considering Indiana can’t be anyone on the road. Seriously does Illinois deserve to be in over Arkansas? West Virginia? Drexel? They’ll need a deep Big 10 tourney run to change it up here.

Mississippi: Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama
With no major out of conference wins, they’re going to need at least two wins to get in. Odds are, they’re toast.

Washington: Oregon, USC, UCLA, Stanford
Zach is annoyed they haven’t been mentioned on the bubble by most mainstream media, but you can thank an 8-10 Pac 10 record for that. In his defense, while they have no out of conference wins, their in conference wins are better than any of those Big 10 teams. Unfortunately the committee won’t see it that way; the sub .500 record stands out. They need to make the Pac-10 tourney finals to have a chance.

Missouri State: Wisconsin
A lot of people have them in, but my question is why. Just because people fell in love with the MVC last year doesn’t mean they’re the new power house. They have just one good win, Wisconsin, and were swept by Creighton and Southern Illinois. Can you really put them over Drexel, who not only has wins at Syracuse and Nova, but also at Creighton? Sorry MVC fans, it just doesn’t cut it.

Bradley: DePaul, So. Illinois, @VCU
They beat DePaul when DePaul was struggling and Southern Illinois by two at home. They’re fourth in MVC with their only impressive road win being over another mid major in VCU. And they got swept by Creighton and Missouri State. No way they should be in.

Massachusetts: @ Louisville
They have a nice out of conference win, but it was over Louisville when they were down. They’ll have to win the A-10 tournament to get in.

Alabama: Xavier, Kentucky, Mississippi
One nice out of conference win over a solid Xavier team, but their other two wins come in a down SEC. The fact they went 7-9 and got swept by Arkansas doesn’t help their cause either. Being they lost to Kentucky in the opening round of the SEC tournament, at 7-10, you can cross them off the list.