Every day, Sippin' on Purple will be taking an updated roundup and look at Northwestern's chances of making the NCAA Tournament. We promise not to jinx it.
Bracket matrix: 12.1 seed, 56 out of 77 NCAA brackets (lower than 11.7 on Friday, they have NU as the last team in)
Kenpom: 49 (up from 53 Friday)
RPI: 48, up from 55 Friday
Sagarin: 49, up from 51 Friday
Big Ten standings: Seventh, guaranteed to play Minnesota in first round on Thursday (up from eighth on Friday)
In or out, consensus: in (barely)
Feeling: Clear eyes, full hearts. In less than a week, we'll know whether Northwestern will make its first NCAA Tournament. Before then, Northwestern has to win a neutral site game against a team roughly as good as them who previously won by 20 on the road, a game Kenpom says Northwestern has a 52 percent chance of winning and predicts to be a one-point game. (Again, my death.) Sure, NU got the win they needed this weekend and virtually every other result went NU's way - no bids stolen, teams like Texas and South Florida and Arizona and well everybody Northwestern wanted losing - but it's still amazingly close. So, the anxiety is obviously killing us, but, let's be honest: this is fun, so let's enjoy it.
Bracketology roundup: Joe Lunardi has NU as the fourth-to-last team in his latest update. Jerry Palm has NU out of the First Four as an 11 seed. Chris Dobbertean hasn't updated after yesterday's games, but had NU playing Xavier in the First Four. Mike Huguenin of Yahoo has NU as the last team in the bracket.