With many of the power conference league tournaments starting yesterday, the Circle of March took a 30-team hit over the last 24 hours. Every team that lost on Wednesday was clinging to the unlikely notion of making a run to a conference title for entry into the NCAA Tournament, but it wasn’t to be. There was, however, one team that won its automatic bid — American University, from the Patriot League. Heading into what will be a ginormous Thursday of action, there are now 168 teams remaining, which means a couple of things. First, we’ve blown through the 50 percent mark, with 172 of the 340 previously-eligible teams now eliminated. Second, over the course of the next four days, a hundred more teams will drop off that list. With 60 tournament games scheduled today, nearly half of those could drop off over the next 16 hours. Enjoy today’s marathon of games!

 Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.12.14)

• Notre Dame
• North Texas
• Washington
• Virginia Tech
• Marshall
• Colorado State
• USC
• Southeastern Louisiana
• Howard
• Miami (OH)
• South Florida
• Texas Tech
• Auburn
• Butler
• George Mason
• Boston College
• Boston University
• Air Force
• East Carolina
• McNeese State
• Hampton
• Oregon State
• Northern Illinois
• Temple
• Vanderbilt
• Georgetown
• TCU
• San Jose State
• UAB
• Washington State

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2014 at 9:31 am by rtmsf and is filed under 2014 ncaa tournament, circle of march. Tagged: american, championship fortnight, circle of march, feature, ncaa tournament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.