On the precipice of March Madness

College basketball fans get set. After today, there are only two more weeks of changing channels and checking computer ratings before the day the men's tournament bracket is set: Selection Sunday.

No one knows what's going to be happening when the Tournament Selection Committee gets together in Indianapolis to decide the field of 65. But here are a few things that may help sort out who's in and who's out. Then again, it may just make it all more confusing.

Conference tournaments begin Tuesday

The 30 conference tournaments get under way Tuesday with the Big South, Horizon League and Ohio Valley opening things up. The first ones to determine automatic bids are the Big South, Atlantic Sun and Ohio Valley, which all end Saturday. The Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden runs March 9-13. The Atlantic Coast, Atlantic 10, Big Ten, Mid-Eastern Athletic and Southeastern don't have their championship games until Selection Sunday, something which only makes the committee's job harder.

The only conference not to have a tournament decide its automatic berth is the Ivy league. Cornell leads the pack.

No. 1 seeds

Kansas and Kentucky, despite each losing Saturday, are still strong candidates as No. 1 seeds with Syracuse, Purdue (which will play the rest of the season without second-leading scorer and rebounder Robbie Hummel), Duke, Villanova and Kansas State all in the mix.

Break out a calculator

RPI The ratings percentage index is used as a supplement by the committee to help determine the 34 at-large berths in the field. The RPI, according to Collegiate Basketball News, uses three component factors: winning percentage against Division I teams (25 percent), opponents' winning percentage (50 percent), and opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25 percent). Games against non-Division I teams are not used in calculating the RPI.

No worries Any team with an RPI in the 30s is almost assured of making the field as either a conference champion or an at-large team. Backing up that are the statistics from Collegiate Basketball News that since 1991, 99.3 percent of the teams ranked 1 through 30 in RPI have made the field as an at-large. Then the odds start dropping: 31 through 40 at 82.9 percent; 41 through 50 at 55.1 percent; 51 through 60 at 25.7 percent. Since 1991, only 10 teams with an RPI ranking above 61 have made the field as an at-large team.

Uh-oh, Arizona

Arizona's streak of 25 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances appears to be coming to an end unless the Wildcats win the Pac-10 Tournament. It is two shy of the record set by North Carolina from 1975-2001. The next longest current streak is Kansas at 20, one that will continue.

Bubbling over

The word "bubble" is used this time of year as much as "trick or treat" is in late October and then disappears for 11 months. There are plenty of teams considered on the "bubble" right now and the big advantage goes to those from the power conferences because they have a chance at a quality win, especially in the postseason tournament, and teams from the mid-major leagues have to avoid losses because quality wins are tough to come by.

The teams from the conferences outside this season's top seven on the power list - Big 12, Big East, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern, Big Ten, Atlantic 10, Mountain West - had their chance at quality wins by playing tough non-conference schedules, with Butler, Gonzaga and Northern Iowa the best examples.