Championship week is finally upon us and that means that the teams on the bubble are all a twitter (and no I'm not talking about politicians) I've always been one who roots for my conference when not playing against non Big Ten opponents. To that end I also want as many Big Ten teams as possible to get into the Big Dance. As you may or may not have already heard, there is an extreme bottle neck in the middle of the B10 right now, with 3 teams at 10 and 8 in conference, and 2 more even at 9 and 9. To go with the top 3 in the conference, that makes 8 Big Ten fans out there, here are some teams to root for in the next few days.

1. Depaul. The absolute definition of a bad loss. In the regular season they beat nobody, nada no one in the Big East, and were at one point nearly even doubled up by conference champ Louisville. For a bubble team with a questionable tournament resume to take a loss to Depaul is like having your bank take on toxic sub prime mortgage debt. Long story short, its bad news. Depaul has already delivered a haymaker, by beating Cincinatti (you know the guys who's coach put down every midmajor in the nation by saying they should get a bid instead). Next up is a team that according to Joe Lunardi is teetering on the edge of making the dance, Providence. A deep run with some big name wins could possibly earn the Friars a bid. A loss to the Blue Demons would put a stop to that. In fact, if Depaul were to make it all the way to the champ game and lose, taking down a few Big East giants along the way, it would be just fine with me.

2. Georgia. In much the same way as Depaul, Georgia is a loss that a team with Tourney aspirations cannot afford.  If the Bulldogs somehow manage to take down Miss State they would then face South Carolina  who according to Lunardi is among the last 4 in of the at large bids, one of only 3 (!) he has the SEC slated to recieve.  With a Georgia win here and provided they don't do what they did last year again, there could only be 2 teams from the ESSS EEE SEEE dancing on sunday.

3.The Washington Huskies. No not exactly the same sort of team like before, but I for one will be rooting for Wash because of the teams it could face, a bubbling Arizona team, a middle of the pack ASU team (currently listed as a  6 but could move into one of the 5 or 4's that the Illini are hoping for) and Cal, for the same reason. Or even perhaps beating UCLA who currently occupies a coveted 4 seed (once again Lunardi's prediction.) Sure its rooting for chalk, but for more nuanced reasons.