While most of college basketball’s big boys open conference tournament play on Thursday (Duke, UConn, St. John’s, Arizona, Kansas and Houston among them) Wednesday was officially ‘moving day’ on the bubble.

Believe it or not, the only real winner on the day was Auburn. Steven Pearl is under fire after a 16-15 regular season, but to the credit of the Tigers they won their SEC Tournament opener against Mississippi State. Still, at 17-15 it feels like the Tigers will need to beat Tennessee on Thursday to punch an NCAA Tournament ticket. A resume which includes wins at Florida, against St. John’s on a neutral, with victories over Arkansas and Kentucky at home certainly helps though.

Beyond Auburn, the real story of the day was that pretty much every other bubble team that played lost.

SMU and Cal both fell in the ACC, with the Golden Bears all but eliminated from serious tournament consideration. It’s the same for Indiana in the Big Ten, which took a loss to Northwestern for the second time in three weeks. At 18-14 overall, it feels like the Hoosiers will stay home in Darian Devries first year. The Big 12’s Cincinnati Bearcats too were eliminated from bubble consideration with an overtime loss to UCF in a must-win game for Wes Miller. And back to the SEC, where it will be a long couple days for Texas after losing to Ole Miss.

The noteworthy bubble games on Thursday feature Mountain West schools New Mexico and San Diego State, while Missouri opens SEC Tournament play against Kentucky.

It’s been a busy week with high-major firings, with Boston College’s Earl Grant and Georgia Tech’s Damon Stoudamire getting the pink slip even before getting to the ACC Tournament.

Fast forward to Tuesday, and two more coaches were let go.

The first, Syracuse’s Adrian “Red” Autry —

Adrian Autry had the shortest coaching tenure in the history of Syracuse basketball. He finished with a 49–48 record, a .505 winning percentage, the lowest of any head coach in program history.

Autry said changes in the college basketball landscape — including the transfer portal and NIL — have made the job more difficult. Autry admitted he did not anticipate how quickly those changes would unfold when he first took the job.

But that’s not all. Syracuse is expected to hire Bryan Blair as its new athletic director. Blair has served as athletic director at Toledo since 2022, and according to ESPN the deal is still pending approval. One of his first major responsibilities will be hiring a new basketball coach.

Torres says it should come down to three names for the job.

And the second, Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley —

Bobby Hurley is out as head coach after 11 seasons with the Sun Devils. Hurley went 185–167 in 11 seasons, leaving as the second-winningest coach in school history. He led ASU to the NCAA Tournament three times, including back-to-back appearances in 2018 and 2019.

Arizona State finished 17–16 overall and 7–11 in Big 12 play, placing 12th out of the 16 teams. Their season ended with a 49-point loss to Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament on Wednesday. It was the most lopsided game in Big 12 history.

Jeff Goodman put out an interesting candidate for the next head coach in Tempe. 👀

Head coach Will Wade won 105 games from 2017–2022 at LSU & made three NCAA tournaments, more than the program had in the previous decade.

An LSU insider tweeted that Will Wade to LSU is a real possibility, but then a NC State insider responded to the tweet with this, highlighting the steep finances that would be required to make the move happen.

Here’s the thing though: There’s some history here…

A Yahoo Sports article by Ross Dellenger about the feud between Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and former LSU athletic director Scott Woodward reveals that the conflict ignited last spring when Landry pushed for LSU to rehire Will Wade after a disappointing season under current coach Matt McMahon. Woodward refused due to Wade's past NCAA violations, including an FBI probe and allegations of player payments that led to his 2022 firing from LSU.

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