Bracketology 2021: Duke, Kansas, and Florida State among big winners

Last year, the college basketball world came to a sudden halt mere days before Selection Sunday in the midst of many conference tournaments. Now nearly twelve months later, we’re so close to another NCAA Tournament and it looks like, despite all the uncertainty, that we’re going to crown a champion six weeks from now.

Even enduring the national pandemic, which has greatly affected a number of basketball programs, there will be March Madness. There will be teams that play fantastic ball in the coming weeks and others who falter down the stretch. There will be teams that get screwed by the Selection Committee in three weeks and others who make their mark on the biggest stage in the sport.

Until that comes, opportunities dwindle for these teams to make an impact on the Committee. That being said, there’s still time to make a difference. Late February means conference play is coming to an end and the conference tournaments beckon, meaning the remaining games will have more and more impact.

This very week, there were many opportunities for bubble teams to make their impact, but who took advantage? We’re going to take a closer look at some of the winners from this past week, and we aren’t just limiting ourselves to bubble teams. Any team that positively affected their standing in bracketology can be a winner. We’re still a few weeks away from bubbles being burst, but we’ll notice a few teams who are far from that standing.

Without further ado, let’s get into the teams that made their impact this week, improving their stock for the NCAA Tournament.