Big Dance Bubbles Boil Over Today

The bubbles are popping already.

With every upset in power conference tournaments, another at-large bid is vaporized.

Creighton went down in the Big East, elating Providence fans all over Rhode Island and wherever else Friar Frenzy habitates. And just as Newton's Third states, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, which means, if the Dance trackers are correct, either Xavier or Minnesota just fell victim to the physics of bubbledom.

Or maybe it was North Carolina State. Or Florida State.

Or maybe we should just relax with a quality adult beverage and wait for the NCAA Selection Committee members to emerge from their war room, pins pressed between fingers and thumbs, to tell us which bubbles are still shimmering in the springtime sun.

That works for us, but coaches as well as players whose bubbles burst will have agonized because they weren't invited to the biggest dance in all of college sports. As if the NIT and a trip to Madison Square Garden isn't consolation enough. But then again, it actually isn't.

For those who fell short in the past week or two, frustration is all over Front Street right now, because The Madness is almost here.

And that means we've got to put up with hearing about bubbles all damn day until the committee puts most of them out of their misery.

Who's to blame for this? Not the teams. The term itself. It was doing so well just being a quaint little throwaway during qualifying at the Indianapolis 500. And then some nitwit sports media dude hijacked it to describe the nearly-there throng who, if they'd played a better non-con or passed to the open dude in December, wouldn't have their collective noses pressed to the dance hall window right now.

But that's too much personal accountability. It's easier to call for change. Very well, then, let's turn the Dance into a Rave, courtesy of the Onion Sports Network:

Bottom line, bubble dudes, if you can't make a field of 68, look forward to enjoying a weekend in Manhattan. If you can even get that far.