Bubble Watch Live: Rutgers is officially a lock for the 2021 NCAA Tournament, and things are looking good for… – The Athletic

We’re here. It’s time. Bubble Watch is live.

After six weeks of twice weekly updates, we converge on the final pre-NCAA Tournament burst of the season. We started the same process last year, of course, and we all know what happened then: The tournaments stopped, Bubble Watch stopped, the sport we love and this strange, wordy, contextually obsessed column we create together was frozen in place. The last BW update of 2020, filed from the media center in Greensboro, N.C., promised to “finish the fight;” this was roughly 15 minutes before the world halted. We were on a flight back to D.C. later that day.

So, yes, there is something especially satisfying about seeing this year of Bubble Watch through to its conclusion.