Five bid-stealing conferences that could shake up the March Madness field

The Atlantic 10 and Mountain West are among the conferences that could shape the field of 68 with potential bid-stealing teams.

Folks, March is finally year. It hasn’t been a perfect season by any means but all signs point to a thrilling NCAA Tournament later this month.

With the calendar turning to the finest chapter of the year, it’s time to take a look at the bid situations of conferences that will shape the field. Below you will find five conferences (and three long shots) that could be bid-stealing leagues. We define bid-stealing conferences as those that have at least one team locked into the field and could have another team win that conference’s automatic bid, which shrinks the at-large bucket for vying bubble teams.

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Atlantic 10

The A10 is essentially a lock for a bid steal every single year. No conference in college basketball has had as much parity in its tournament as the Atlantic 10 and that figures to be the case once again this time around.

St. Bonaventure and VCU have all but wrapped up their spots in the field of 68. Richmond and Saint Louis remain on wrong side of the bubble and other teams like UMass, Davidson, Dayton and George Mason are capable of making things interesting. As well as the Bonnies and Rams have played, it almost seems foolish betting on either of those teams cutting down the A10 nets given the nature of this conference.