Editor's note: The NCAA tournament Bubble Watch has been updated through games of Sunday.
Bubble Watch is of the considered opinion that the way we customarily look at the bracket's dividing line between "in" and "out" may no longer reflect 2019's potentially unique realities.
Specifically, as first pointed out this week by Michigan State assistant athletic director Kevin Pauga, the bubble could turn out to be smaller than we think. Possibly much smaller.
A number of unrelated and indeed coincidental factors, ranging from an aberrantly weak Pac-12 to the solid-gold profiles built by mid-major programs such as Buffalo and Wofford, have created conditions that are unusually conducive to bid thieves.