If you're a bubble team, this is exactly what you don't want to see happen. Cleveland State knocked off Butler in the Horizon League tournament championship.

Why does this matter? Well, Butler was a lock to make the tournament before and Cleveland State wasn't. The Vikings getting in basically steals a bid from an at-large team right on the cusp of the tournament, and there's nothing merit-wise you can do to change it.

Auburn's margin for error just got a lot smaller.

Also, I saw this by SI.com's Seth Davis:

On the flip side, who could be this year's Air Force '06?

Well, I'm pretty sure it won't be Air Force, considering the Falcons were winless in the Mountain West. But if you recall, very few experts even considered having Air Force in the field that year, yet the committee, in a blatant act of sentimentality, gave the Falcons an at-large bid. (After this happened, the committee subtly changed its mission from finding the "most deserving" teams for at-large bids to the "best" 34.)

So if you're looking for a shock this weekend, look out for Auburn. At a time when just about every bubble team has been stringing together embarrassing losses, the Tigers were winning eight of their last nine games, including road wins at Mississippi State and Alabama and home wins over Tennessee and LSU. Auburn is ranked 64th in the RPI and went 5-7 on the road. If they win two games in the SEC tournament, things could get really interesting.

That's really the first time I've heard someone cite some sort of precedent for letting in a team with a lot of wins whose RPI numbers don't quite add up. By the way, ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi missed that Air Force team on his picks that year.