Circle of March, Vol. I

Posted by rtmsf on March 3rd, 2014

In this, our third annual Circle of March, we’re going to spend the next five weeks until post-championship Tuesday counting down and eliminating the entirety of Division I basketball until we get to a single, solitary name. The Patriot League Tournament gets under way this evening, and a total of 12 other conference tourneys will tip off this week after that. According to the NCAA, 11 of this season’s 351 Division I schools are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament because of APR scores or because they’re still transitioning up. We have removed those names from the CoM and wish them the best of luck in future seasons — the other 340 schools are represented in the CoM’s inaugural 2014 edition. Because we want every eligible team to get at least one day of run on the Circle, though, we have chosen not to formally remove any of the other already-eliminated schools until Tuesday. Bubble teams also won’t be removed until they’re officially disregarded by the NCAA Selection Committee in two weeks. It just seems nicer this way.

Last year you might recall we added a bit of a game component to the debut CoM. This year’s version is no different, but instead of asking readers to find like groupings of school logos, we’ve added a crossword puzzle element to this one. See if you can locate at least 10 of the NCAA Tournament-related words hidden within the Circle (note: make sure to click on the image for a larger and clearer view). The first 15 people who tweet at us (@rushthecourt) or e-mail us (rushthecourt@yahoo.com) with 10 or more of the correct hidden words will receive a free RTC t-shirt. We’ll also give a t-shirt prize to every 10th person who gets that many right after that. For the first person who identifies all of the hidden words, we’ll have a grand prize. Please, everyone, feel free to SHARE AWAY!

Here is 2014 Circle of March. Welcome to March Madness.

circlemarch_03.03.14

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.03.14)

  • Abilene Christian (D-I transition)
  • Arkansas-Pine Bluff (APR)
  • FIU (APR)
  • Grambling State (APR)
  • Grand Canyon (D-I transition)
  • Incarnate Word (D-I transition)
  • Mississippi Valley State (APR)
  • Nebraska-Omaha (D-I transition)
  • New Orleans (APR)
  • Southern (APR)
  • UMass-Lowell (D-I transition)
Share this story

2 responses to “Circle of March, Vol. I”

  1. Henry Muto says:

    Here are more teams that are eliminated from National Championship contention.

    North Kentucky (Did not quality for Atl Sun tourney)
    Kennesaw State (Did not quality for Atl Sun tourney)
    LIU Brooklyn (Did not quality for Northeast tourney)
    Sacred Heart (Did not quality for Northeast tourney)
    Jacksonville State (Did not quality for OVC tourney)
    Tennessee State (Did not quality for OVC tourney)
    Austin Peay (Did not quality for OVC tourney)
    Tenn Martin (Did not quality for OVC tourney)
    Columbia
    Brown
    Penn
    Princeton
    Dartmouth
    Cornell

    There are a few other teams like Southern Utah, Lamar, Houston Baptist that can no longer qualify for their conf tournament as well.

  2. rtmsf says:

    Henry – reading is fundamental!

    “Because we want every eligible team to get at least one day of run on the Circle, though, we have chosen not to formally remove any of the other already-eliminated schools until Tuesday. Bubble teams also won’t be removed until they’re officially disregarded by the NCAA Selection Committee in two weeks. It just seems nicer this way.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *