5 March Madness bid thieves that could hurt UNC, Michigan on the bubble

1. Potential March Madness Bid Thieves – Memphis Tigers

There may not be a team in the country that the bubble teams are rooting for to win their conference tournament more than Houston. A tremendous regular season has the Cougars on the top line of brackets with a 29-2 record, meaning there is absolutely no shot Houston misses the dance if they get picked off in Fort Worth.

There is no other team in the American with an NCAA Tournament-worthy resume so anyone who knocks out the Cougars will steal a bid from a bubble team. The squad most capable of upsetting Houston is Memphis, which played the Cougars very hard in both of their regular season matchups.

The Tigers only lost by eight at Houston in a game they played without leading scorer Kendric Davis and the Cougars required a buzzer-beater from Jamal Shead to avoid overtime in Memphis on Sunday. Finding a way to beat a team three times in one season is extremely difficult so it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Memphis won a rematch in the AAC title game.

There are some potential landmines for the Tigers on their side of the bracket, including a potential quarterfinal matchup against a sneaky good UCF team, but there is enough talent here that Penny Hardaway’s team should get to the final on Sunday. With the AAC final tipping off just hours before the brackets are revealed there’s a chance that the first team out of the field will be there because Memphis took their spot by stealing the American’s auto bid.

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