Selection Sunday is less than 10 days away, but prospective bubble teams already have a lot to worry about with Champ Week around the corner. Conference tournaments offer one final chance for those bubblers to earn quality wins to improve their own NCAA Tournament resumes, but they also offer an opportunity to prospective bid thieves who could shrink the bubble.
College basketball fans are very familiar with the concept of the bid thief, which involves a team that wouldn't otherwise qualify for the NCAA Tournament as an at-large winning their league's automatic bid in the conference tournament. Since that team now earned a ticket to March Madness, there is one less at-large spot available for the actual bubble teams, meaning that the unexpected conference champ has "stolen" the bid of a more worthy program.
We have had some iconic bid thieves over the years, including the 2024 NC State team that needed to win the ACC Tournament to go dancing and ended up advancing all the way to the Final Four as a No. 11 seed. The bid thief era could be endangered if the field expands beyond 68 teams, which would essentially render Champ Week meaningless, but for 2026 let's break down five potential bid thieves who the bubblers should be rooting against in a big way between now and Selection Sunday.
5 Potential Bid Thieves For The 2026 NCAA Tournament
Akron Zips (MAC)
Miami (Ohio), to the consternation of many power conference apologists, locked up a spot in March Madness on Friday night with a dramatic overtime victory over bitter rival Ohio on the road to complete a perfect 31-0 regular season. Only six teams have gone unbeaten in the regular season since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, and the selection committee isn't going to deny the Redhawks a spot to dance even if they get tripped up in the MAC Tournament next weekend.
And there is a very real chance the Redhawks don't get that autobid if they run into the MAC's other potential NCAA Tournament team in Akron. The two met once in the regular season, with the Redhawks winning by three at home, but the Zips were the league's favorite entering the season after making a trip to the Big Dance a year ago and pushing themselves with a strong non-conference schedule against the likes of Purdue, Ivy League front-runner Yale and solid MVC outfit Murray State.
KenPom rates Akron (60th) as a significantly better team than Miami (90th) as of Saturday morning, which could lead to high drama if the teams meet for the MAC's autobid in the championship next Saturday. An Akron win would lead to a two-bid MAC for the first time since 1999, when (ironically) the Redhawks earned an at-large behind future NBA star Wally Szczerbiak and reached the Sweet 16.
Seton Hall Pirates (Big East)
The power conference that could be the most vulnerable to bid thieves is the Big East, which is projected to send just three teams dancing: No. 4 UConn, No. 18 St. John's and unranked Villanova. The only true bubble contender the conference has to offer is Seton Hall, which went 20-11 during the regular season but just 10-10 in league play — including an 0-6 mark against the three tournament-bound teams.
Most of those six losses were close ones, with questionable officiating costing Seton Hall a chance to take down the Huskies on the road last Saturday. A few bounces of the basketball in their favor could have resulted in a few more quality wins for the Pirates, which makes them more than capable of getting hot at Madison Square Garden and stealing the league's autobid.
Seton Hall will start the Big East tournament against either DePaul or Creighton, who they have gone 1-3 against this season, but that win won't matter much. The path to the title won't be easy, as it likely involves taking down two of the big three in succession. But if the Pirates can pull it off, they would vault directly into the field and shrink the bubble after spending most of the season in Next Four Out territory.
San Diego State Aztecs (Mountain West)
The final year of the Mountain West as we know it has been quite messy, as the league's top teams have continued to find ways to trip up against so-so opposition. Utah State is a tenuous lock entering the conference tournament and New Mexico is firmly in the bubble mix, but the real bid thief could be San Diego State, which has strong metrics (46th in KenPom and 48th in the NET) while racking up a few too many losses (four outside of Quad 1) to be a truly viable at-large candidate.
The conference tournament could offer more opportunities for the Aztecs to enhance their at-large candidacy with neutral site games against the Aggies and Lobos, with several other teams in the middle of the league (Boise State, Grand Canyon, Nevada) qualifying as Quad 2 for NET purposes. San Diego State has also split its opportunities against New Mexico and Utah State in the regular season, which should give them plenty of confidence in the conference tournament should they draw them again.
WAB (wins above bubble) has not been kind to the Aztecs, who rank 54th in the metric (behind fellow bubblers Auburn, Indiana, SMU and Virginia Tech), which makes their trip to Las Vegas a win-or-bust one for March Madness purposes. There is a good chance that a San Diego State win in the conference tournament pops the bubble of New Mexico, who is drafting slightly ahead of them in most bracketologists' opinion, so the Lobos should be highly motivated to beat the Aztecs if they meet in the semifinals on Friday.
Santa Clara Broncos (WCC)
The WCC conference tournament is a very staggered bracket, which is by design to protect the league's top teams for as long as possible. Both No. 12 Gonzaga and No. 21 Saint Mary's are safely in the field and already through to the semifinals, but the league could produce a third team as No. 3 seed Santa Clara has a strong bubble case of its own.
The Broncos are positioned solidly in terms of WAB (43rd), leaving them in Last Four In range for most experts. The format of the WCC Tournament means the Broncos have a bye into the quarterfinals, where they await the winner of Pacific and Seattle for the right to a third showdown with Saint Mary's in the semis.
Winning that quarterfinal is a must for Santa Clara, which is guaranteed Quad 1 games the rest of the way if they do, and they have already beaten the Gaels once and were very competitive in both of their meetings with the Bulldogs. There is a chance the Broncos could be left out if they don't get the league's autobid, but winning it would certainly qualify Santa Clara as a bid thief since pushing both Gonzaga and Saint Mary's into the at-large pool would likely take a spot from someone else.
VCU Rams (Atlantic 10)
The Rams finally got a Quad 1 win on Friday night when they ground out a victory at surging Dayton, not an easy task since the Flyers beat a ranked Saint Louis group last week. Predictive metrics are very high on VCU, which looks like a tournament-caliber team, but a 2-5 mark in Quad 1 games as well as 19 wins against the bottom two quadrants could leave them in need of extra wins in the A10 tournament.
The win over the Flyers locked up the No. 2 seed in the bracket for VCU, which means they likely have to beat surging St. Joseph's in the semifinals before beating either top-seeded Saint Louis or Dayton in the final. The Billikens are a lock to go dancing, while VCU is hovering around Last Four In territory, so taking the autobid from the A10 would definitely cost someone a spot.
There is also the outside possibility of a three-bid A10 if Dayton, which is red-hot and currently positioned to be the No. 4 seed, beats the Billikens in the semifinal and the Rams in the final, which could create two bid thieves out of one league. Bubblers nationwide will have a close eye on this tournament with the hopes that VCU gets bounced early and Saint Louis takes care of business.