March Madness: Who OSU Fans Should Root For This Weekend

With Oklahoma State bowing out in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament, fans, coaches and players alike can only wait and see what verdict the NCAA Tournament selection committee hands down on Sunday.

There will be a total of 32 automatic NCAA Tournament bids handed out before Sunday — many of which will come from traditional one-bid leagues — which means that as an OSU fan, you’re rooting for the opposite of mayhem in conferences that have one clear-cut best team and typically send one representative to the Big Dance.

Why is that? Because an upset — like Middle Tennessee State losing in the C-USA tourney this week, for example — means that the Blue Raiders are in the running to grab one of a handful of at-large bids remaining versus the auto bid for the league. Should MTSU get in with an at-large, that takes a spot OSU could snag, and means that C-USA could send two teams to the dance rather than one.

So with that, here’s who OSU fans should be rooting for this weekend.

American Athletic Conference

The American is likely sending only three representatives to the NCAAs, and that is all but locked into stone. Memphis nearly put a wrench in things by upsetting Cincy on Saturday, but with a Bearcats comeback, crisis in the AAC for OSU has been avoided.

Atlantic 10

Best case scenario, Rhode Island wins the A-10 handily and St. Bonaventure gets passed over by the committee. The Rhode Island Rams are in the tourney’s title game, so now we root for them to beat the winner of Davidson-Bona being played on Saturday.

Davidson winning Saturday and capturing the A-10 is worst case scenario, and they are a four point favorite over the Bonnies. This is likely a two-bid league so Davidson clinching the auto bid could potentially make it three.

Mountain West

Nevada being throttled by SDSU on Friday was not great, Bob. That means the Wolf Pack will be an at-large team because of their resume, and that the MWC has a bid thief in the making in either New Mexico or SDSU. The MWC was going to be a one-bid league otherwise, but Nevada’s loss makes it a two-bidder.