It's late February, Selection Sunday is less than three weeks away and the word bubble is back in the college basketball vernacular.
It's spoken more in Philadelphia this year where Villanova and Temple are the definition of the word.
The Wildcats are now stuck below .500 in the Big East at 6-7 and 15-10 overall after Tuesday's double-overtime loss at West Virginia. Their power rating is a fringe No. 44 for an NCAA at-large selection. Their strength of schedule is worthy at 35 but the consistency is gone in their last 10 (4-6).
|  | | Villanova coach Steve Lappas has seen his teams finish on both sides of the dreaded bubble. |
Villanova had four games to impress the NCAA Committee. Valient efforts on the road like the 107-100 loss to the Mountaineers won't be enough if it can't win the Big East tournament.
"Bubble is only a dirty word if you're on the wrong side of it," Villanova coach Steve Lappas said. "Last year, we had 19 wins overall and didn't make it, which doesn't happen to Big East teams often. I hope we win a few more to stay in the discussion. It's easy to fall out of it."
Villanova follows the trip to West Virginia with a pair of home games against St. John's and Seton Hall, before ending the season at dangerous Maimi.
"There are going to be a few teams in our league with 9-7 or 8-8 records,? Lappas said. "Who are they going to pick?"
Lappas said he doesn't view Villanova as an annual bubble team.
"We've been in the tournament four of the last six years," Lappas said. "There isn't pressure. You create your own pressure. Last year, we didn't respond well to being on the bubble when we lost a game we needed to win at Boston College. Who knows what will happen if we win all four."
Temple's story is just as complicated. The Owls have a strength of schedule rating of 19, but their 15-12 record made their RPI slip to 51. The Owls lost seven straight games during the non-conference and have only two notable non-conference wins against Memphis and Indiana. The Hoosiers are a top 50 team, but the Tigers are rated in the 80s.
The Owls finish with home games against Dayton, LaSalle and a road game at George Washington.
"We've been in situations like this many times before where we've had to come from behind and get in the tournament," Temple coach John Chaney said. "What concerns me more is the lack of respect for our conference. We need to have two teams ranked (St. Joseph's and Xavier) and have a third team win the tournament to get three teams in the field.
"People shouldn't be looking over their nose at their teams in our conference."
Temple's win over UMass on Saturday was critical for the Owls to have a chance at an at-large berth. The Owls could make a case with 18 wins, but have a legitimate shot to get 20 if they don't win the conference tournament. That would mean winning the final three games, plus two in the Atlantic 10 tourney.
"We're feeling a lot better about ourselves," Chaney said. "We certainly can't go into the A-10 tournament with 14 or 15 losses. That would mean you have to win it all. If we win the rest of our games, and win a couple in the tournament, then we'll definitely be in.
"We've gone in before with 17 wins, at 17-13 and 17-and-whatever," Chaney said. "That's because we have a great power rating. We always do because we play tough teams."
But usually they win some of them, unlike this year where the Owls blew chances to knock off the big boys early in the year.
"But (the bubble) always seems to work for us," Chaney said. "Because we've been in the tournament like 18 of 19 years or something."
It's actually 15 of the last 16 years. But who's counting.
"The word bubble doesn't mean anything to me," Providence's Tim Welsh said. "All I heard last year was that Notre Dame was a lock. We went there and beat them after we had lost 10 games in a row. Notre Dame didn't get in. Worrying about the bubble doesn't do any good."
Especially if it bursts, like it could in Phily.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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