A rare break came in the form of last night’s Arkansas State win over Western Kentucky, but that merely prevented a team from potentially jumping ahead of Penn. Unfortunately, George Mason choked away a late lead and lost the Colonial final, and Santa Clara couldn’t take down a Gonzaga team it swept during the regular season. A 13 seed still is possible, but the opportunities for meaningful upsets are dwindling rapidly.

Penn isn’t getting a great deal of help so far, though George Mason’s unlikely run in the CAA tourney is looking like a possible bright spot. Should the Colonials beat VCU tonight in the final, that should bump up Penn one spot on the s-curve. If Santa Clara can sweep its third meeting with Gonzaga late tonight in Portland, the Broncos also would seem to give the Quakers a boost. Finally, losses by Oral Roberts and Western Kentucky would prevent those two from leapfrogging Penn, as there’s no one else close in either conference.

Penn nearly inflicted some damage on its own seeding cause last night, flirting with a disastrous home loss to Brown last night before pulling it out in the end. There weren’t any happy endings in key conference tournament games, however, as Winthrop held off VMI at the buzzer to win the Big South tourney, and Davidson won in Charleston to claim the SoCon bid. Meanwhile, we’ve added George Mason to the Allies list, because their resume is worse than Penn’s, and the Colonials upset Hofstra to make it to the CAA semis.