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NCAA Tournament Bubble Watch: Colorado State Is First Team Out

In last week's bubble watch there were 16 potential at-large berths avalible and according to SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean there are 15 open spots:

19 Locks + 11 Looking Good = 30 teams in good shape.
8 of these 30 hold their conference's auto bid at the moment, so 22 at-larges are accounted for.
37 Total At-Large Bids - 22 = 15 Available Bids

The Colorado St. Rams and Colorado Buffaloes are still outside of the 15 open spots. The Rams are the first team out while Colorado is fading and is the eighth team out. The Rams have a solid RPI at 44 and are 2-2 against teams in the RPI top 50 with wins over UNLV (25) and Southern Miss (49). However, their bad losses to Sam Houston State and Hampton are keeping them on the bubble and not in the tournament.

Colorado State has a huge game this week as they host the New Mexico Lobos, who are one of the last four teams out of the bracket and are in the same 'work to do' category as Colorado State. The Rams have already beaten the Lobos at the Pit and the winner of this game will have the inside track in being the Mountain West's fourth NCAA tournament team.

As for Colorado, they already lost once this week in overtime to Texas A&M, and while it is a quality loss the Buffs need to get more high quality wins. They get their chance when they host Kansas State who is one of the last four teams in the bubble watch. This game for Colorado is not a make-or-break game since they still host Texas and Kansas, but a win over Kansas State will go a long way help Colorado's sinking RPI which is at 99 while putting them closer to being a tournament team.