Friday morning bubble update

Utah State’s emphatic win over Boise State just might have punched the Aggies’ dance card.

With a variety of other so-called bubble teams losing on Thursday — that’d be you, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, Memphis, Wake Forest, UAB, Kent State and Clemson — Utah State moved way up the board on a lot of national bracket prediction sites.

In perhaps the best seed prediction out there, Sports Illustrated’s Andy Glockner has moved Utah State up to a 9 seed facing Notre Dame in Round 1. The winner of that game would face Kentucky two days later.

Glocker said this: “Aggies probably will get in, but a loss means two-bid WAC.” He then added, “Utah State (25-6, 14-2, RPI: 30, SOS: 105) rolled in its quarterfinal game and, by all rights, should get into the NCAAs regardless at this point. If the Aggies make the WAC final, it really should be enough.”

According to ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach, USU is a lock. And in a development a lot of Aggie fans would like to see happen, ESPN’s bracketology has Utah State as an 11 seed playing Richmond in San Jose with a potential second-round date with New Mexico on the line. If USU somehow won a couple of games in this prediction, the Aggies would play their Sweet 16 game in Salt Lake City.

It’s a scenario Aggie fans would absolutely go crazy drooling over.

According to CBSSports.com, USU now has an RPI of 30. That’s just too high to ignore if USU fails to win the WAC tournament. Of course, a loss tonight to Louisiana Tech would very possible unlock USU’s lock.

That view comes through in Jerry Palm’s bracket prediction where he has USU as a 12 seed playing Tennessee, also in San Jose.

Over at Fox Sports, the Aggies look a little better, getting a 10 seed against Oklahoma State in Milwaukee.

Fox Sports writer Jeff Goodman, listing USU as “Ticket Punched” wrote this: “The Aggies can still earn the automatic berth by winning the WAC title, but with everyone else losing on the bubble, Stew Morrill’s team has likely already locked up a spot.”