The Top 2 Teams Survive, and Two Big Ten Powers Are Dying

What the heck happened tonight? The Big Ten is falling apart, and Arizona and Syracuse came close to dropping their first games. Other teams all over are losing unexpectedly by massive margins: Green Bay, Indiana State, Stony Brook, Florida State...just a crazy night. Let's look at all the games from tonight that might affect the bracket.

@St. Bonaventure 78, Massachusetts 65: St. Bonaventure is not a bad team. If they can put together a string of wins, they'll find themselves on the bubble. But still. UMass's seed took a major hit with this loss. I had them on the #5 line today, but with two losses in its last three games, to the Bonnies and to Richmond, I could see them dropping to the #7 line, or further. UMass's resume isn't much better than Ohio State's (see below).

Penn State 71, @Ohio State 70 (OT): This is what I saw a lot of on Twitter after this game:

@BracketBriefer Is Ohio State a tourney team? Any quality wins?

— Daniel Gatley (@danielgatley) January 30, 2014

Good question. Ohio State doesn't have a lot of bad wins on its schedule, like a lot of teams, but it has no good wins at all. There are a lot of decent wins: Ohio, at Marquette, American, Maryland, North Dakota State, Delaware, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Illinois. All decent wins, against teams with no chance at getting in with an at-large bid. And assuming they lose their next two games at Wisconsin and at Iowa, OSU will fall to 16-7 and 3-7 in the Big Ten. That won't get it done without good wins somewhere. A #1 seed just 3 weeks ago, the Buckeyes are in major trouble.

Northwestern 65, @Wisconsin 56: Not a good night for the Big Ten. This is not the time of the year when you want your tournament teams losing to non-tournament teams. Sure, Wisconsin is in a better spot that Ohio State thanks to some good non-conference wins and that win over Iowa. Before today, at least its losses were defensible. But you can't lose to Northwestern at home, you can't. Wisconsin's seed will have to take a hit because of tonight. Yet another team in a free fall after sitting on the #1 seed line.

Arizona State 89, @California 78 (OT): When Cal battled back and got this game into overtime, it looked like the Sun Devils would fold. Instead, ASU took over in the extra period and stamped its best win. Cal, on the other hand, was handed its third-straight loss and will have to handle Arizona next on Saturday. From today's bracket brief, it is evident that the Pac-12 could get a lot of teams into the tournament, but essentially everyone besides Arizona and UCLA are extremely close to the bubble. That's what makes ASU's win all the more impressive. A loss, after leading by double-digits late in regulation, could have been a season breaker. Instead, Cal is left wondering if it is about to shatter.

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Lots of shocking losses tonight besides the ones listed above. Many happened in the mid-major ranks, but a lot of major teams had to fight to survive, including Arizona and Syracuse.

Memphis 69, @UCF 59
North Carolina 78, @Georgia Tech 65
Delaware 89, @William & Mary 72
@Albany 77, Stony Brook 67 - Vermont looks again like AE favorite
@VCU 76, Fordham 60
@George Washington 69, La Salle 47
Vermont 67, @Hartford 60
Toledo 83, @Miami (OH) 70
@American 74, Navy 52
@Tennessee 86, Ole Miss 70 - Tenn. needs every win it can get
@Saint Louis 77, Richmond 57
@Valparaiso 75, Green Bay 60 - baffling loss for Horizon's best team
@Southern Illinois 79, Indiana State 60 - today was ISU's first showing on bubble line in Brief
Arizona 60, @Stanford 57 - Arizona survives tough test at the Farm
Syracuse 67, @Wake Forest 57 - Syracuse survives tough test at the Joel
@Kansas 92, Iowa State 82 - good home win for Jayhawks, Cyclones competed well
@NC State 74, Florida State 70 - FSU still safe, but seed is falling rapidly
Belmont 76, @Morehead State 73
@Boise State 69, Air Force 58
Gonzaga 54, @Santa Clara 52 - Zags escape on last-second three

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Some great games are set for Thursday night. Amongst the big conferences, Cinci heads to Louisville and UCLA heads to Oregon, And Chattanooga heads to Davidson, the winner to have good control over the Southern Conference, while UCSB tries to wrest control of the Big West back from UC Irvine. If Thursday is close as crazy

#2 Florida at Mississippi State
#4 Cincinnati at #5 Louisville
(LFI) #12 Providence at Marquette
#16 Chattanooga at Davidson
Bryant at #16 Robert Morris
#13 North Dakota State at South Dakota
Purdue at #3 Michigan
Houston at #8 Connecticut
CSU Bakersfield at #14 New Mexico State
Abilene Christian at #13 Stephen F. Austin
Pacific at (FFO) BYU
#6 UCLA at #10 Oregon
#12 Louisiana Tech at UTEP
#15 UC Irvine at UC Santa Barbara
#11 Saint Mary's at San Diego
#16 Northern Colorado at Portland State