It was a great Saturday for the NBK if your name was not Don’t Call Me Mark Furman, but we’ll get to them in due time.

Congratulations to the Utah St. Aggies, who took down mighty San Diego St. with a last second three from the intrepid Sam Merrill and in doing so punched their ticket to the big dance. Belmont got past Murray St. in a thriller to capture the Ohio Valley conference crown. That’s two for the NBK.

Our own SLU Billikens made a power move, pummelling St. Bonaventure to move up in the Atlantic 10 rankings — #3 by KenPom and #4 in final standing — and to #7 in the NBK. The Bills earned a double-bye and a likely rematch with the saggy Bonnies on Friday in Crooklyn.

With most conferences completing their regular season play on Saturday, Ken Pomeroy released the rest of his Log5 projections for next week’s conference tourneys, with only the Big TenElevenFourteen lagging. Of the newest batch, Stephen Freaking Austin at 58.1% has the best odds of getting in via the auto-bid. Most precarious are SLU and NC State, both with long odds of winning the auto-bid and tenuous places on the wrong side (Billikens) and the right side (Wolfpack) of the ever-shifting bubble.

You may be asking “what about the Missouri Valley Conference, aren’t two low-rated teams in the final?” Yes, Bradley vs Valpo seems like an NBK fever dream, but both have already achieved Sweet Sixteenness — the Braves in 2006 and the Crusaders back in 1998 — and are therefore NBK-ineligible.

Wither Furman. The Paladins ran into nemesis Wofford in the conference tournament opener, and just as in their regular meeting the Terriers came out on top. Wofford had entered the Southern Conference tournament on a seven game losing streak. Ugh. I am sure the folks at whatsapaladin.com are crushed about now.

Best of luck to Winthrop in their championship game on Sunday. The tournament field is beginning to take shape.