UCLA Basketball: NCAA Tournament Selection Show Open Thread

The NCAA men's tournament bracket announcement begins on Sunday, March 15 at 3 p.m. (PT) on CBS.

You might want to stick around until 5:30 PM PT. The NIT announcement will be over on ESPNU. If you want to familiarize yourself with the NIT here's the official site, the brackets, the NCAA explanation of the process, and the Wikipedia page. The takeaway from this is that the NCAA owns the rights to the NCAA, and thus, for all practical purposes, no one rejects the bid. If UCLA goes to the NIT, the first three games will probably be in Pauley Pavilion.

Now that we got that bummer out of the way, since the Bruins lost that game to Arizona on Friday (along with critical conference losses at ASU, Berkeley and Colorado on the road), UCLA is on the bubble -- the wrong side of it according to most pundits.  The Washington Post has an analysis that pretty much explains it all. Jeff Eisenberg also does a good job explaining the current state of the bubble.

ESPN's Joe Lunardi says UCLA is in the "First Four Out." Teamrankings.com is more optimistic: UCLA has a 64.4% chance to make the Tournament. I have all the links for the major bracketologists plus analysis in this earlier post.

Enjoy the pins and needles, and hope for a miracle!