Bracketology 2019: Most likely bid thieves heading into March Madness

Bid thieves can wreak Bracketology havoc during conference tournaments. Which leagues are most likely to have automatic bid surprises?

The nearly two-week long “Championship Week” is upon us, with 32 separate conference tournaments set to begin. The winners of each of these tournaments will be awarded an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, while the other 300+ schools having to wait until Selection Sunday to hopefully hear their name called.

For a couple of dozen quality programs, they already know that they’ll be an at-large team in the Big Dance, as their resume warrants it. But for another dozen+, that Sunday will be agonizing as they wait to know their fate.

For those bubble teams who don’t win their respective conference tournaments, they’ll be spending the time watching other games for specific results. To be specific, they’ll be rooting for the favorites of each conference tournament to win, so that “bid thieves” don’t happen.

Each year, there are usually a couple of teams who pull of surprising upsets against better teams who were already projected to make the NCAA Tournament. When that happens, a conference (usually a mid-major league) gets one more bid than they were supposed to, taking one from a “bubble team”. Last season, Davidson from the Atlantic 10 and San Diego State from the Mountain West won their respective conference tournaments to cash their tickets to the Big Dance, which gave an extra bid their those leagues.

This year is no different, with bubble teams everywhere nervous about bid thieves lurking around. Due to how the regular season played out and the overall strength of certain individual teams, there are plenty of opportunities for unexpected bids in particular leagues.

I’ve identified seven conferences that have a legitimate possibility of having a bid thief. Find out which leagues they are, as well as the likely suspects.