Saturday Bubble Busting: Who helped, who hurt tourney chances?

Five Biggest Winners:

• Kentucky: Quite a turnaround from last Saturday, eh? The Wildcats knocked off Missouri in overtime on Gameday, picking up their best win of the season and, thanks to Ole Miss losing to South Carolina, giving them their only top 50 win. Missouri struggles on the road, but those neutral court wins over VCU and Illinois sure look good right now. Kentucky is anything but a lock for a bid, there’s now a chance they can sneak in without beating Florida. Perhaps more important is the fact that Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin finally showed up. UK is trending the right direction. Finally.

• North Carolina: You can more or less take everything I just wrote about Kentucky and say the same thing about UNC, with the only difference being that they knocked off NC State, they may not have to beat Duke now, and it’s their four-guard lineup that’s playing well.

• St. Mary’s: The Gaels picked up a massive win on Saturday, as they knocked off floundering Creighton at home. St. Mary’s still has some work to do if they want a realistic shot at getting an at-large bid — this was, after all, their first top 50 win — but if they lose in the WCC title game, there’s still hope.

• Villanova: At this point, Villanova should be able to feel pretty safe about getting an at-large bid, as there aren’t many teams in the country that can boast a trio of wins like Louisville, Syracuse and Marquette, not to mention a victory at UConn. Jay Wright’s club knocked off the Golden Eagles on Saturday afternoon behind 22 points from Darrun Hilliard.

• Cal: Thank you, Olaf Schaftenaar. The Oregon State forward was whistled for a technical foul for dunking in warmups, allowing Allen Crabbe to get to the free throw line before the clock started. He made one. Cal won by one.

Seven Biggest Losers:

• Creighton: It still may be a bit of a stretch, but Creighton is toying with the possibility of being on the wrong side of the bubble. They’ve lost six of 11 and four of their last six. They are a game behind Wichita State in the MVC standings thanks to losses against Drake, Illinois State, and Northern Iowa. With a trip to Bradley and a home game against Wichita State left on their schedule, there’s no guarantee that the Bluejays win their last two. Creighton does have a win over Wisconsin and they did beat Cal, which looks better by the day, but they are playing with fire.

• Southern Miss: The Golden Eagles likely won’t be getting an at-large bid this season, as Memphis completed their sweep and clinched the Conference USA regular season title with an 89-73 win in Memphis.

• Alabama: The Crimson Tide may have a gaudy SEC record, but they’ve collected too many ugly losses to warrant serious consideration for an at-large berth. On Saturday, it was a three-overtime debacle they dropped at LSU. It’s their fifth sub-100 loss this season. It’s looking like 2011 all over again, when the Tide went 12-4 in the SEC and missed the tournament.

• Xavier: Xavier blew a golden opportunity to boost their tournament resume as they blew a 17 point lead in the span of about five minutes on Saturday afternoon against VCU.

• Iowa: Iowa had just managed to crawl their way back into the bubble conversation when they blew a 19 point lead and lost to Nebraska on Saturday.

• Baylor: The Bears have lost three straight and six of their last eight to fall to 16-11 overall and 7-7 in the Big 12. The good news? They’ll still have a chance to pick off Kansas State and Kansas at home.

• Arizona State: The Sun Devils suffered a loss they could ill-afford, as Washington went into Tempe and left with a 68-59 win. The worse news? Their last three games are on the road: at USC, at UCLA and at Arizona.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.