As we move through Championship Week, we’ll continue to bring you short reviews of each of the automatic qualifiers to help you fill out your bracket next week. The first team to gain entry into the 2015 NCAA Tournament is Belmont, the Ohio Valley Conference champion. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent bid winner.

Belmont Bruins

Belmont took down the 25th-ranked Racers and punched a ticket to the Dance. (Samuel M. Simpkins / The Tennessean)

• OVC Champion (22-10, 11-5)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #144/#147/#151
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +2.4
• Likely NCAA Seed: #15

Strength: Another year, another Belmont roster loaded with outside shooters. As usual with Rick Byrd’s 4-out, 1-in motion offense, Belmont hoists three-pointers at an incredibly high rate – 26 attempts per contest, which account for nearly 50 percent of its shots – and hits them often enough (37.9% 3FG) to remain competitive on most nights. And when the ball movement is really crisp and the shots are really falling, it’s capable of flat-out bludgeoning opponents; against Eastern Illinois in the Ohio Valley Tournament quarterfinals, the Bruins shot 16-of-27 from behind the arc and crushed the Panthers by 33 points. The constant movement and ball-screening also enables Byrd’s club to find easy buckets on backdoor cuts, a major reason why it ranks fifth nationally in two-point percentage (56.2% 2FG).

Weakness: The Bruins give up 106.4 points per 100 possessions this season, their worst mark since 2006 and the fourth-worst mark within the Ohio Valley. With no prominent player standing taller than 6’8”, they are susceptible to being gashed inside and occasionally manhandled on the glass. Belmont’s two-point defense (51.2% 2FG) ranks among the 60 worst in college basketball. Offensively, the Bruins turn the ball over at their highest rate since 2010 (evident at times against Murray State on Saturday), lowlighted by 18-turnover and 16-turnover losses to Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State, respectively, in early February.

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What a phenomenal Saturday of college basketball. The focus of the world was on the dramatics of games in Chapel Hill, Louisville, Norman and Bloomington, among others, but the Circle of March was instead tuned into the eight conference tournaments that were under way and the number of other leagues that eliminated schools from our eligibility list by virtue of the season ending. As a result, a whopping 39 schools dropped off of the CoM in the last 24 hours, leaving us with a total of 237 eligibles heading into the heart of Championship Fortnight. By this point next week, we’ll be down to around 80 or so. Congratulations are due to Belmont, the first automatic qualifier of the year as the OVC champion; the second qualifier from the Missouri Valley will solve for its representative later today at Arch Madness.

 Eliminations (03.07.15)

• Arkansas State
• Brown
• Bryant
• Cal State Fullerton
• Canisius
• Chattanooga
• Cleveland State
• College of Charleston
• Columbia
• Cornell
• Dartmouth
• Delaware
• Denver
• East Tennessee State
• Elon
• Florida Atlantic
• Gardner-Webb
• Idaho State
• Illinois-Chicago
• James Madison
• Longwood
• Loyola (Chicago)
• Marist
• Montana State
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Princeton
• Rider
• Saint Mary’s
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Santa Clara
• Siena
• Southern Utah
• Sain Francis (PA)
• Troy
• UNC-Greensboro
• VMI
• Western Illinois

We’re already through the first “week” of Championship Fortnight, and some 58 eligible teams have been eliminated from contention from the Circle of March (and National Championship contention). Friday night was particularly busy, with 18 more schools removed after losses in their conference tournaments. Saturday will be a very busy day, as the Summit League tips off its tournament and seven others are in action. The focus of today will be in the OVC, as Murray State will battle Belmont for the the league championship (and accompanying automatic bid), and the Ivy League, where Yale will attempt to wrap up its first conference championship in over 50 years (1962) with a road game at Dartmouth. Note that it’s our standard that we do not remove teams until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us for a little longer.

 Eliminations (03.06.15)

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As we head into the first weekend of Championship Fortnight, the holes in the Circle of March are already becoming apparent. Starting with 333 eligible teams, we’re now down 293. Nine conference tournaments have already tipped off, and three more — the Colonial, Southern and WCC Tournaments — get things started today. Another 13 teams fell off our CoM last night and we’re really going to start divesting ourselves of the bottom of Division I basketball in the next three days. Note that it’s our standard that we do not remove teams until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us through the weekend.

Eliminations (03.05.15)

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Four more conference tournaments got under way yesterday, resulting in 14 more eliminations (listed below) from the 2015 Circle of March. That leaves us with 306 eligible teams on the CoM, noting that it’s our standard that we do not remove teams until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us through the weekend. Two more tournaments get started today — the Missouri Valley‘s Arch Madness in St. Louis and the MAAC in Albany — while the Patriot League, Atlantic Sun and OVC pick back up with their second days of tournament action.

Eliminations (03.04.15)

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Championship Fortnight got under way last night as the Atlantic Sun, Horizon League and Patriot League tipped off their postseason tournaments. Seven more teams were eliminated from contention for the 2015 National Championship, with Army, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Loyola (Maryland), Stetson, Wright State and Youngstown State riding off into the basketball sunset. Those three conferences will take a break tonight, but the starts of the America East, Big South, Northeast and Ohio Valley Tournaments will keep us engaged as another group of eliminations are scheduled. As of this morning, there are still 320 schools eligible for the ring. Note that it’s a CoM standard that we do not remove teams from the Circle of March until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us through the weekend.

Eliminations (03.04.15)

• Army
• Jacksonville
• Kennesaw State
• Loyola (Maryland)
• Stetson
• Wright State
• Youngstown State

Here’s hoping everyone who gave yesterday’s Circle of March crossword game a whirl yesterday found it exhilarating and it got you into the right mood for the next 35 days of Madness. Monday was all fun and games with the CoM, but today we get serious. Of the 333 teams that are eligible to win the 2015 National Championship, it’s time to start removing names from the list. There are 13 conference tournaments that begin action this week (see full online schedule here) — beginning with the Atlantic Sun, Horizon League and Patriot League tonight — and six teams residing in those 13 leagues were not invited to join the proceedings. They have been removed from today’s edition, leaving us with 327 remaining teams.

Note that it’s a CoM standard that we do not remove teams from the Circle of March until their seasons are over — therefore many Ivy League squads and several other teams that will not qualify for next week’s conference tournaments will remain with us through the weekend. But enough about that. It’s Championship Fortnight — let the Madness begin!

Eliminations (03.03.15)

• Austin Peay
• Central Connecticut
• Fairleigh Dickinson
• Jacksonville State
• Tennessee State
• Tennessee Tech

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.

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