Today's Rooting Guide - Bubble Watch

Hi all! Glad to see so many enjoyed the first edition of this year's rooting guide for the NCAA tourney bubble. I'll try and get these done as often as I can when there are important games. 

Let's start with a recap of last night because it was a GREAT night for Michigan:

• Michigan wins!
• Our NET ranking is up 6 spots overnight (from 70 to 64)
• 6 teams ahead of us on the bubble lost last night (Virginia Tech, Florida, Seton Hall, Oklahoma, Penn State, & Utah State). In particular, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, and Penn State were right ahead of us in the seed line. 

As for tonight, there isn't a bunch to watch for but here are a few important games:

• Iowa @ Purdue (7pm EST on ESPN2) - I'm thinking we want Purdue here as really the only thing that can help us here is Big Ten tournament seeding. (Plus I'm still pissed at our loss against Iowa)
• Northwestern @ Ohio State (8pm EST on FS1) - This one is a pretty easy one. We're rooting big for the Wildcats. We have two wins against Northwestern and we want those two wins to look as good as possible. Plus, to hell with the Buckeyes.
• Arizona State @ Stanford (10pm EST on FS1) - This is an interesting game. We lost to ASU earlier this season and we're fighting with them for a bubble spot. While keeping the loss looking as good as possible, we also don't want them to get in over us. Stanford is a really interesting team. They're 3 games under .500 but have won 5 of their last 6 games. We're rooting for the Cardinal here. 
• USC @ Oregon (11pm EST on ESPN2) - This is the game with the most bubble implications for the night. USC is pretty comfortably in the tournament currently while Oregon sits on the First Four Out on most brackets. We're rooting for the Trojans in this game. 

So there you have it! There aren't a ton of games with bubble implications on Friday so your next edition will be on Saturday morning. Cheers! Go Blue!