Welcome to the fourth annual Circle of March.
If you’ve been around with us for a while, you already know the premise behind this series; and if you’re not familiar with it, thanks for checking in! What we try to do with this series is to celebrate that March is now here and it’s time for postseason basketball to envelop our bodies and souls for the next five weeks until the sport crowns a new champion. As of today — the first Monday of Championship Fortnight — 333 of the nation’s 351 Division I men’s programs are eligible to win the 2015 National Championship. Those schools can be found somewhere on the below circle. Eighteen other schools are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament because they have low APR scores, are on a self-imposed probation, or are still transitioning into Division I. We have already removed those names and wish each of them the best of luck in making it onto the CoM in future seasons. 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’s Vol. II edition ahead of the start of conference tournament games. 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.
In previous years you might recall we added a game component to Volume I of the CoM (scroll through the last three Circles of March here). This year’s version is no different and so we’ve once again added a crossword puzzle element to it. See if you can locate the 10 names of coaches and players hidden within the Circle likely to make some noise in March (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 the 10 correct hidden words will receive a free RTC t-shirt. For a bonus challenge, there are also four groupings of schools surreptitiously clustered in areas of the CoM that refer to the following: 1) the unbeaten national champions; 2) the schools currently riding a streak of two or more consecutive automatic bids; 3) the national champions with 10 or more losses; 4) the __________ (see if you can figure out the fourth cluster — it relates to NCAA Tournament appearances and Final Fours). Have fun!
Here is the 2015 Circle of March. Welcome to March Madness.
Maybe next year for this group.
- Abilene Christian (transitioning)
- Alabama State (APR)
- Arkansas-Pine Bluff (APR)
- Appalachian State (APR)
- Central Arkansas (APR)
- Florida A&M (APR)
- Grand Canyon (transitioning)
- Houston Baptist (APR)
- Incarnate Word (transitioning)
- Lamar (APR)
- Massachusetts-Lowell (transitioning)
- Northern Kentucky (transitioning)
- Nebraska-Omaha (transitioning)
- San Jose State (APR)
- Syracuse (self-imposed penalty)
- Southern Mississippi (self-imposed penalty)
- Southern (failure to provide sufficient academic data)
- Wisconsin-Milwaukee (APR)