the shrewdness of apes

Georgia Tech is making me look good, and a few other picks have come through (thanks, Belmont!), while others aren't working out (Loyola (Md.)). I'm going to try to wrap up my field of 65 here, so to start, a couple more one-bid conferences became apparent upon closer inspection:

Horizon: Butler; They're fading a bit at the end of the season, but they're in regardless, and if they lose their rubber match to Wright St. on Tuesday there are going to be some angry teams in the SEC and Big XII.
WAC: Nevada; For a few minutes I was searching for a case for New Mexco St., but they missed their chance to sweep Nevada and their best out-of-confernce win is against Ohio. I'll also be watching for Utah St. to make a run in their conference tourney.

Mountain West
This conference gets consideration along with the Missouri Valley as best non-BCS conference. They're looking at 3 bids right now.
Mediocre Western State Universities: Colorado St., Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, TCU
OK, TCU isn't a state university, and mediocre is a generous way to describe a team that lost 11 in a row from mid-January to mid-February. The rest of these teams barely warrant a sentence, though I want to take a second to consider the strange season that Utah had. They started off the season with 3 losses, including to terrible Southern Utah and Colorado teams. They followed that up with 3 wins capped off by beating Washington State. A few weeks later they pummeled a lost Virginia team in Puerto Rico by 24 points to get to 5-6 on the season, then promptly went out and lost 6 in a row to teams like Northwestern and Albany. They broke out of that with a win over Air Force (ranked in the Top 15 at the time). They finished at 11-18, but with victories over 3 Top 25 teams that could all make the Sweet 16.
Bubble Boys: San Diego St.
The Aztecs just lost to Utah and were swept by Wyoming. If they win those 3 games instead, they're 24-6 and looking strong right now, though they have no good non-conference wins to speak of.
Mormons Soliders March on Las Vegas: BYU, Air Force, UNLV
Conventional widsom has these 3 teams in the field of 65, they're all ranked in the Top 30 of the AP and Coaches polls, and they all split the season series with each other. But when you look beyond the gaudy records, there's certainly some question that could be raised. The best non-conference wins of the group are against Texas Tech (UNLV, Air Force) and Stanford (Air Force) both of whom are questionable tournament cases, and there are some bas losses to Lamar (BYU), TCU (Air Force) and UC-Santa Barbara (UNLV). Air Force has now dropped 3 in a row heading into the conference tournament. If any of these teams loses a bad game early this week, they will be sweating it out into Sunday.

Missouri Valley
They've already crowned their champion (Creighton), so there's not much to predict here other than whether a 3rd team will get in. It's getting pretty tight and you have to figure there may be at least one or two surprises this week that will throw things into a tizzy. Some people - [cough] Matt [cough] - complained that this league gets press simply for beating up on each other, but there's no question that even the worst teams here are capable of giving good teams a run.
The Never Weres: Evansville, Indiana St., Drake, Illinois St.
Actually, Indiana St. beat Butler and started 4-1 in conference before losing 13 of their last 14 games. Drake swept the Iowa sweepstakes, beating Iowa, Iowa St. and Northern Iowa twice and was 9-2 going into MVC play. Evansville's coach just resigned.
The Used to Bes:Wichita St., Northern Iowa
After making the Sweet 16 last year and starting 9-0, the Shockers were ranked in the top 10. Then they went out and lost 8 of 11. Northern Iowa started of 13-2 (4-0) before finishing 5-10 and falling to Bradley in the MVC tournament.
A-Wishin': Bradley, Missouri St.
Bradley took care of business against the bottom of the conference, but got swept by Missouri St. and missed their opportunities to beat good teams until they won at Virginia Commonwealth. It probably won't be enough. Missouri St. has a win over Wisconsin, but lost to Winthrop at home during Bracketbusters. Their season may hinge on whether they end up at #65 or #66.
A-Dancin': Creighton, Southern Illinois
These two teams are almost yearly invitees and both stand to receive pretty high seeds - there was even some talk of Southern Illinois getting a #2 seed, but they're probably looking at a #4 now.

Pac 10
For a while in the early winter, the Pac 10 was getting some play as possibly the best conference in the country. UCLA was #1, Arizona was in the top 10, Washington was highly thought of, Oregon was one of the last undefeated teams and Washington St. was playing well out of the gate. The bloom is off that rose a bit, but they're still likely to get at least 5 bids.
Dregs Ahoy!: Arizona St., Oregon St., California
Yeah, so there's these guys.
What To Do About Them?:Washington, Stanford, USC
Washington was a highly-touted Top 20 team to start the year but spit the bit by losing 6 of their first 7 conference games. Their end of the year win over UCLA won't be enough to get them in unless they can use that mojo to win the Pac 10 tourney. Stanford keeps cropping up in bubble talk, but they lost 8 conference games to 7 different teams and wins over Virginia and Texas Tech are tempered by losses to Santa Clara and Cal. USC has a profile that bores me, but they're probably in barring a disastrous showing in mid-week.
Fighting West Coast Bias: UCLA, Oregon, Washington St., Arizona
Would you feel good picking any of these teams to go far in your bracket? Not that there's a ton of better choices out there - things are really wide open - but each of these teams strikes me as unreliable in some way. UCLA's probably looking at a #1 seed and the others could all be #4s give or take.

OK, I'm tired and out of anything interesting to say, and this leaves me with 55 spots claimed and the Big XII and SEC still to go.