Day seven of Championship Fortnight is in the books, and with it the first week of the Circle of March. Sunday’s slate was a bit lighter than Saturday, but we still eliminated 12 more teams to reach a total of 224 eligible schools remaining. Of course, at this time next week, we’ll be down to the magic number of 68, which means there’s still a lot of work to be done over the next 168 hours. There will only be 13 games on tap tonight, but they’re all elimination games with the MAC and MEAC getting under way, the Summit and WCC playing their semifinal rounds, and the CAA, MAAC and SoCon crowning champions. Keep in mind that to preserve the integrity of the regular season, we’re not yet eliminating schools from the CoM that still have games to play (i.e., Penn and Princeton).

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.09.14)

• Canisius
• Vermont
• Towson
• Davidson
• South Dakota
• Quinnipiac
• Hartford
• Georgia Southern
• Western Illinois

Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is Rush the Court’s resident bracketologist. He will update his brackets at least twice a week through the rest of the regular season here at RTC, but his updated brackets can be viewed daily at Bracketology Expert. As we approach March Madness, he’ll also provide occasional blind resumes. Evans has been ranked by the Bracket Matrix as the nation’s 11th-best bracketologist out of hundreds of entries.

It’s the best week of the year as we all count down the hours to Selection Sunday. It may take every minute to figure out this field, which continues to produce loops with some of the stunning losses we’ve seen over the last few weeks. On Sunday alone, two potential No. 1 seeds lost  following a Saturday when Kansas and Arizona lost. One quick note for this bracket: Wisconsin’s loss to Nebraska on Sunday night moved the Badgers off of the No. 1 seed line. Villanova is now the final No. 1 seed and I believe firmly that if the bracket was released today, the Wildcats would join Florida, Wichita State and Arizona on the top line. For the first time in over a month of bracketing, I feel like those four teams are relatively clear-cut choices on the top line, but over the next six days that is certain to change. The Gators and Shockers are locked in as No. 1s but Arizona and Villanova could still make things interesting in conference tournament play. Meanwhile, the Badgers loss was Nebraska’s gain. The Cornhuskers jumped up to a No. 10 seed in this bracket and will likely end up in the No. 10-12 range on Selection Sunday.

The NCAA Tournament Picture (full bracket below)

• NCAA Tournament Locks (36): Arizona, Florida, Wichita State, Syracuse, Wisconsin, Kansas, Duke, Villanova, Virginia, Creighton, Michigan, San Diego State, Iowa State, Michigan State, Louisville, North Carolina, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, UCLA, Texas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Kansas State, VCU, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio State, George Washington, Memphis, Arizona State, New Mexico, Oregon, Baylor, SMU, Oklahoma State
• NCAA Tournament Auto-Bids (5): Harvard (Ivy), Eastern Kentucky (OVC), Wichita State (MVC), Mercer (A-Sun), Coastal Carolina (Big South)

The Bubble Picture

• Projected Bubble Spots Left: 10
• Bubble In (10): Colorado, Stanford, Nebraska, Saint Joseph’s, Dayton, Xavier, California, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Tennessee
• Bubble Out: BYU, Arkansas, Georgetown, Providence, Green Bay, Florida State, St. John’s, Belmont, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia

Potential Bid Thieves Left (70)

• American (5): Houston, Rutgers, UCF, Temple, South Florida
• ACC (10): Clemson, N. C. State, Florida State, Maryland, Miami (FL), Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Boston College, Virginia Tech
• A-10 (9): Dayton, St. Joseph’s, Richmond, La Salle, St. Bonaventure, Rhode Island, Duquesne, George Mason, Fordham
• Big East (8): St. John’s, Xavier, Marquette, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Butler, DePaul, Providence
• Big 12 (3): West Virginia, Texas Tech, TCU
• Big Ten (6): Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Penn State, Northwestern, Purdue
• Mountain West (9): UNLV, Nevada, Boise State, Wyoming, Fresno State, Utah State, Colorado State, Air Force, San Jose State
• Pac-12 (5): Utah, Washington, Oregon State, Washington State, USC
• SEC (12): Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, Mississippi State
• WCC (3): BYU, San Francisco, St. Mary’s

The NIT Picture

• There will be more to come on the NIT bracketology front as this week progresses, so stay tuned. I’ll likely also try to throw together CBI and CIT fields.
• Clinched NIT Bids (5): Belmont (OVC), Florida Gulf Coast (A-Sun), Davidson (SoCon), Vermont (America East), Green Bay (Horizon)

The Projected NCAA Tournament Field (March 10, 2014 at 10:13 AM CT)

Read the rest of this entry »

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. Three more teams — one well known, the other two less so — punched their tickets on Sunday. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent bid winners.

Coastal Carolina

Cliff Ellis And Coastal Carolina Are Your Big South Champions — Finally. Welcome To The Big Dance Chanticleers!

• Big South Champion (21-12, 14-5)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #228/#226/#239
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = -1.3
• Likely NCAA Seed: #16 (First Four)

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

1. Seven Big South teams won 10 conference games this season, but in the end, it was Coastal Carolina who emerged from the pack to win the Big South Tournament. Former Auburn and Clemson head man Cliff Ellis is now in his seventh season at Coastal, and his first Tournament appearance with the Chanticleers has to feel long overdue. This was the fifth consecutive season that CCU had won more games than they lost in conference play, and the program posted 28 wins in both 2010 and 2011 only to be upset in the conference tournament final in each season. No Championship Week heartbreak for Ellis’ team this season, however, as the Chanticleers are dancing for the first time in over two decades.
2. The Chanticleers will be one of the better defensive teams on the lower seed lines. Ellis’ bunch was the best defensive team in the Big South all season long, and they put the clamps on Winthrop Sunday, forcing the nation’s 14th-best three-point shooting outfit into an 8-of-26 effort from behind the arc. They also compete on the boards – an effort spearheaded by 6’10” senior El Hadji Ndieguene (10.1% OR, 18.5% DR). Defense and rebounding are often major weaknesses for Cinderella hopefuls, but that will not be the case with Coastal Carolina. Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday was a massive day of eliminations from the Circle of March, as the sixth full day of Championship Fortnight resulted in 46 more schools dropping out of contention for the national title. The bloodbath included only one automatic bid — hey, Eastern Kentucky — but there were 11 other mid-major tournaments occurring yesterday, as well as a number of other regular seasons ending. Sunday thus far has already brought us a few more automatic bids — Wichita State, Coastal Carolina and Mercer are all going dancing. A handful of schools were eliminated from the CoM by virtue of not qualifying for their conference tournaments starting next week, but keep in mind that to preserve the integrity of the regular season, we’re not yet eliminating schools that still have games to play (i.e., Penn and Princeton). This means that we are left with 232 “eligible” teams for the 2014 National Championship. One week to Selection Sunday!

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.08.14)

• Florida Gulf Coast
• Indiana State
• Northeastern
• Winthrop
• New Hampshire
• Wagner
• Rider
• Samford
• UNC-Asheville
• Hofstra
• St. Francis (PA)
• Missouri State
• Drexel
• Elon
• Siena
• UMBC
• VMI
• San Diego
• Army
• Southern Illinois
• Loyola Marymount
• Holy Cross
• James Madison
• Maine
• Chattanooga
• Saint Peter’s
• Brown
• Columbia
• Cornell
• Yale
• Dartmouth
• IUPUI
• Cleveland St.
• Belmont
• Binghamton
• The Citadel
• College of Charleston
• Niagara
• Santa Clara
• Pepperdine
• Lamar
• Central Arkansas
• Houston Baptist
• Eastern Washington
• Montana State
• Idaho State
• Southern Utah
• South Alabama
• Texas State
• UC Davis

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 second team to gain entry into the 2014 NCAA Tournament is Eastern Kentucky, the Ohio Valley Conference Champion. Here’s what you need to know about the most recent bid winner, and if you’d like to peruse all of the previously minted conference champs, click here.

Eastern Kentucky

Get Your Dancing Shoes On Glenn Cosey And Company — Eastern Kentucky Is NCAA Tournament Bound.

• OVC Champion (24-9, 14-5)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #113/#132/#150
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +3.4
• Likely NCAA Seed: #15

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

1. Many folks may have penciled March mainstay Belmont into the NCAA Tournament field when they saw Saturday’s OVC title match-up between the Bruins and Eastern Kentucky on the docket, but it’s their stylistic comrades that will represent the conference in the Big Dance. Much like Belmont, Eastern Kentucky boasts an efficient offense that, 24 times out of 33 games this year, was able to overcome the Colonels’ extensive defensive shortcomings. The contrast in EKU efficiency between ends of the floor is best captured by their eFG% and eFG% against – only three teams have been better nationally in the former category, but just nine D-1 teams have fared worse in the latter. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday was a fun day of eliminations, with several good games involving a couple of buzzer-beaters, one step closer for #cheerfortheears, and the NCAA Tournament’s first automatic bid (Harvard). All told, 16 teams lost games and were removed from the Circle of March, with two more tournaments on tap to begin today (America East and The Summit). That leaves us with 282 “eligible” teams, but keep in mind that in order to respect the integrity of the regular season, we will not remove teams until their schedules are finished regardless of their current status. This means that the five other already-eliminated Ivy League teams, each of which concludes their seasons tonight, will come off the CoM on Sunday (Penn and Princeton, the two other Ivies, will be removed after their Tuesday night finale).

 Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.07.14)

• Murray State
• Appalachian State
• High Point
• Evansville
• Furman
• Radford
• Illinois State
• UNC Greensboro
• Charleston Southern
• UNC Wilmington
• Oakland
• Loyola (Chicago)
• Morehead State
• Gardner-Webb
• Valparaiso
• Northern Iowa

The first ticket to the NCAA Tournament was punched in New Haven on Friday night, and as each of the 31 automatic qualifiers plays their way into the Dance over the next week, we’ll take some time to give you an analytic snapshot of each team that you can refer back to when you’re picking your brackets next weekend.

Harvard

Tommy Amaker’s Team Is Back In The Big Dance, And The Crimson Aren’t Planning On Leaving The Party Early

• Ivy Champion (25-4, 12-1)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #52/#32/#37
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +11.4
• Likely NCAA Seed: #10-#12

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

1. Well, well, well – look who we have here. The Harvard Crimson, by virtue of their victory Friday night over Yale, clinched the Ivy League title and earned the 2014 NCAA Tournament’s first official bid. Harvard and NCAA Tournament in the same sentence may have been quite a story a few years ago, but after three straight Tournament appearances, the NBA’s brief bout of Linsanity in 2012, and last year’s opening round takedown of New Mexico, the Crimson have become a familiar March entity. This year’s team may be Tommy Amaker’s best since he arrived in Cambridge, but navigating its way to another Ivy title was not the walk in the park many expected, as Yale proved a worthy challenger right up until the end. Read the rest of this entry »

With four days of Championship Fortnight now behind us, we have breached the magical 300-team mark. As of this morning, some 298 teams are unofficially still alive for the 2014 national championship, represented below on the Circle of March. Nine tournaments are in varying stages of progress at this point, with the CAA and SoCon tipping off today. Yesterday we removed only 11 teams from the CoM, but with nearly every league finishing up its regular season this weekend and a number of tourneys picking up fast and furiously, we’ll get below 200 in no time. Note: In order to respect the integrity of the regular season, we will not remove teams until their schedules are finished regardless of their current status (i.e., as of today, six Ivy League teams cannot win the conference’s automatic bid).

 Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.06.14)

• Monmouth
• East Tennessee State
• Tennessee Tech
• Drake
• Fairfield
• USC Upstate
• Portland
• Bradley
• Southeast Missouri State
• Marist
• Santa Clara

Alright, now we’re talking. With 14 more eliminations last night scattered among the Patriot, Big South, OVC and NEC, the Circle of March is starting to show some obvious gaps. Of our original 340 eligible teams, we’re now down to 309 remaining. The NEC was particularly exciting yesterday with two one-point games, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer at Mount St. Mary’s that resulted in the rare postseason RTC. Today the Atlantic Sun and OVC are back in action, with the Missouri Valley, the WCC and the MAAC each getting under way. Note: In order to respect the integrity of the regular season, we will not remove teams until their schedules are finished regardless of their current status (i.e., as of today, six Ivy League teams cannot win the conference’s automatic bid).

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.05.14)

• Liberty
• Presbyterian
• Campbell
• Bucknell
• Lehigh
• Fairleigh Dickinson
• Central Connecticut State
• Bryant
• St. Francis (NY)
• SIU-Edwardsville
• Lafayette
• Colgate
• Longwood
• Eastern Illinois

With a mere 10 days to go before Selection Sunday, it’s time to start checking all the mock brackets daily. Or hourly, if the mood strikes. With that in mind, the RTC Podcast crew decided to do a special mid-week Bracketology edition, inviting bracketologists Jerry Palm (CBSSports.com – @jppalmCBS), Patrick Stevens (Syracuse.com – @d1scourse) and Daniel Evans (RTC – @bracketexpert) on to discuss the ins and outs of selecting the field of 68. It’s an engaging and informative listen if you have the time to learn how these guys put together their brackets and some of their notable observations on the teams trying to earn invitations — join us! The entire rundown is below.

We’re going to be dropping podcasts/podblasts like crazy over the next five weeks of action, so make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes so that you’ll get all of the episodes immediately downloaded to your listening device.

• 0:00-5:09 – Bubble Talk or Seeding Talk?
• 5:08-25:22 – Brackets with Jerry Palm
• 25:22-43:49 – Brackets with Patrick Stevens
• 43:49-1:00:39 – Brackets with Daniel Evans
• 1:00:39-1:04:11 – Recap