Bracketology: The top potential bid-stealers who could make bubble teams nervous on Selection Sunday

Jerry Palm looks at most likely teams to steal bids by winning their conference tournaments

By Jerry Palm

Mar 7, 2025 at 11:51 am ET • 3 min read

CBS Sports graphic

With conference tournament season now underway, the topic of bid-stealers comes up. That happens when a team wins its conference tournament that would not have otherwise been in the NCAA Tournaments field of 68 and takes the spot of a team that would have otherwise been an at-large team.

Sometimes, that team comes from its own conference, but often, it comes from somewhere else. People get most excited when a typical one-bid league ends up getting a second team in due to an upset in the conference tournament. Last season, the NCAA Tournament featured a whopping six bid-stealers. This season may not be so active. Here is a look at where some think those bid-stealers could come from this season.

Mountain West

The league currently has four teams in the bracket, including Boise State and San Diego State as two of the last four teams in the field. So, it seems if someone else wins the conference tournament, it might be one of its own teams that gets poached. The most likely team to be able to pull it off is Colorado State. The Rams have won six straight and are currently in second place in the conference.

Bracketology Bubble Watch: Time running out for teams around the cut line hoping to make the NCAA Tournament

Jerry Palm

West Coast

Gonzaga and Saint Mary's look to be safely in the field, if not as high up as usual. That means if another team wins the league automatic bid, it would likely be an extra team for the conference. San Francisco and Santa Clara each have a win over one of the top teams and are the best bets to steal a bid from another team.

Atlantic 10

The conference leader VCU is on the bubble, but does not have the credentials of a typical at-large team. In particular, the Rams are lacking in quality wins, meaning wins over other potential at-large teams. Their best wins are at Dayton and against Colorado State. The predictive metrics like them, but they also have a Quad 4 loss to Seton Hall that would be hard to overcome. Keep in mind that if VCU is an at-large candidate, it means that it added a loss in its conference tournament. This is also true for the other conference leaders listed below.

Big West

UC San Diego is a great story, leading the conference in its first year of NCAA Tournament eligibility. Unfortunately, the Tritons are not a good at-large candidate. They have a NET ranking of 35, which is decent and a win at Utah State, which is likely in the field. However, they have a strength of schedule ranking of 211 and have played only six games in quads 1 and 2, splitting them. Their conference schedule does not help. Outside of UC Irvine, no other team is in the top 100 of the NET. However, their nonconference SOS is 232, so that hurts as well.

Missouri Valley

Top-seeded Drake is another great story. The Bulldogs lost their coach and best player to West Virginia in the offseason, but they have not missed a beat. They hired Ben McCollum from Division II power NW Missouri State and he brought several players with him and Drake is atop the MVC again this season. However, despite a 25-3 mark on the season, the Bulldogs fall short of an at-large profile. They beat Vanderbilt in the regular season, which is one of two Quad 1 wins, but all three of their losses are Quad 3 and like UCSD, they too have a very poor strength of schedule. All but five of their games are in Quad 3-4.

Someone could also make a run in one of the major conferences as well, but it is hard to see which of those teams could. So many teams from those conferences get at-large bids that it would take a team deep down the standings to legitimately steal a bid. Except from the ACC, where maybe Wake Forest or North Carolina could manage it. .