Virginia Commonwealth University has played an excellent season.

The Rams came into the season as defending Colonial Athletic Association champions and the favorites to win it again this season. Fresh off a first-round NCAA tournament victory over Duke last year, VCU played big all season en route to the regular season conference title. On Sunday, the Rams lost in the conference semifinals, taking them out of the running for the conference’s automatic bid.

It won’t be until this coming Sunday that the Rams learn whether or not their regular season title and last year’s first round upset of the Blue Devils is enough to make a return trip to the NCAA Tournament. It’s the one time in college basketball that teams have to sit and watch other teams determine their fate.

George Mason is familiar with the feeling. In 2006, the Patriots stood a chance of winning the conference tournament and getting the automatic bid, but Mason fell short and lost in the CAA semifinals. Fortunately for GMU, the selection committee thought the overall body of work presented by the team was enough to warrant an eleven seed in one of the brackets. Two weeks after that, George Mason advanced to the Final Four. Being that the CAA was granted a second team the year after, it’s clear the run had an impact on how the tournament selection committee views the conference.

Yet VCU is very much a bubble team. They beat Maryland, but Maryland is also a bubble team. They beat Duke last year, but “last year” is usually a weak argument. As regular season conference champions, the Rams certainly had a better regular season than conference tournament champions—who else—George Mason, although Mason prevailed in their only head-to-head matchup.

The whole argument is academic. Virginia Commonwealth has a strong case for the tournament, but so do a lot of teams. Their placement will be determined in large part by how those other bubble teams perform in their tournaments.

Gonzaga was ranked #22 as of the latest poll, but the Zags lost their conference championship to San Diego late Monday night. San Diego wouldn’t have made the tournament if they hadn’t gotten that automatic bid, and Gonzaga will certainly have earned their tenth straight tournament appearance despite the loss. Therefore, San Diego is taking up some bubble team’s “place in the tournament.”

Syracuse, like Virginia Commonwealth, can only watch, wait and hope now. The Orange, on the same “bubble,” lost to Villanova on Wednesday afternoon in the first round of the Big East tournament. Syracuse’s hopes are hanging by a thread after that loss, because Villanova is sitting on the same bubble. It’s entirely possible that today’s game was a sort of “play-in game” all its own for the NCAA Tournament.

Another team watching their tournament appearance come or go on television? Florida. That’s right, the two-time defending champions are a bubble team. Florida went 8-8 in the SEC, but finished 20-10, which is a tournament-worthy record. Their play in the SEC playoffs will make or break their case for a shot at the third straight title.

Now suppose—and this has happened before—that Maryland comes from “wouldn’t have been selected” to “ACC Champions” by winning the conference tournament. Now, that’s not the likeliest of scenarios, but the Terrapins have done that exact thing in the recent past. In 2004, Maryland came into the ACC Tournament as the 6 seed, and managed to upset Wake Forest, NC State and then Duke for the conference championship.

If Maryland were to do that as the 6 seed this year, it would knock a team out of the NCAA tournament, and that team won’t be from the ACC. The Terrapins need to win the conference to secure an entry into the dance, but anything less would likely keep them out of it.

We usually don’t think of college basketball as a place where a team has to watch other teams play to find out where they’ll wind up. Because of the massive NCAA tournament and the conference tournaments, college hoops is known as the arena where everything is settled, well, in the arena. We associate coaches campaigning their team’s merit on national TV with college football, not basketball. Yet the growing parity in college basketball has led to the point where these “bubble teams” could very well make the Final Four. Bubble teams that are selected in near coin flips, often based on a “last three games played” picture of a much more complicated season. There are computer rankings—in basketball the three-letter word is RPI—writer polls, coaches polls and a committee that supersedes all of that anyway. I’d like to point out that these are all things that the public at large complains about when it comes to college football.

The point is that with growing parity, it’s impossible to include everybody. Ignore the guy saying to expand the tournament another round to an unslightly 124 teams. It sounds good until you realize that under that plan, the regular season would hold almost no meaning. (Imagine watching a UNC-Duke game knowing with relative certainty that both teams will qualify for the tourney. Besides the mood of a bunch of people painted shades of blue, what significance would that rivalry carry then?) Be careful how you react to one bracket unfolding once, too. That means you, mid-major fans claiming George Mason somehow earned mid-majors a magical golden ticket that supercedes the fact that their schedule couldn’t possibly be as tough as an ACC team’s.

Also remember that while it’s true that not much separates the truly deserving from the bubble team, it’s also true that not much more separates that bubble team from the truly undeserving. When parity comes around, the lines blur on both sides after all.