UC Irvine’s Bent LeuchtenSam Wasson/Getty Images
21 Teams in the Projected Field (by Overall Seed): 47. UC Irvine, 49. McNeese, 50. Arkansas State, 51. Samford, 52. Yale, 53. Akron, 54. Middle Tennessee, 55. Utah Valley, 56. Northern Colorado, 57. Jacksonville, 58. Cleveland State, 59. UNC Asheville, 60. Norfolk State, 61. Merrimack, 62. Bryant, 63. Southern, 64. William & Mary, 65. Nebraska Omaha, 66. Morehead State, 67. American, 68. Long Island
Biggest Change: UC Irvine’s at-large dream dies in darkness
OK, yes, “dies” is a bit harsh. There’s still a remote chance the 18-3 Anteaters secure an at-large bid.
After Thursday’s overtime loss at UC Riverside, though, that chance pretty well consists of winning every game left on the regular-season schedule before losing to UC San Diego in the Big West championship game. Anything short of that and the resume that looks good enough for now (NET: 50, RES: 41, QUAL: 75) would take a pretty big hit.
Are we sure UCI lost that game, though? The ESPN+ feed cut out with six seconds remaining in overtime and never came back, which was mighty disorienting if you, like me, live on the East Coast and were already half asleep in bed after midnight, trying to watch the end of that one.
But, yes, it was in fact an Anteaters loss, and their second Quad 3 misstep of the season.
They do have a 4-1 record against the top two Quads, putting them on a mighty short list of teams with at least an .800 winning percentage in at least five games played. The other five members of that club are Auburn, Alabama, Iowa State, Florida and Michigan State, all of whom are in the top nine of our overall seed list.
None of UCI’s wins was all that great, though, and they’ll be fortunate if the road win over UC San Diego is still a Quad 1 result by Selection Sunday.
And it’s “Anteaters or Bust” if you’re looking for an at-large candidate here. UCSD, Arkansas State, Samford, McNeese and Liberty all have respectable resume metrics, but they each already have a Quad 3 or Quad 4 loss and nowhere near enough quality wins (nor quality opportunities remaining) to play their way into the conversation.
In other news, we are down to just seven teams in this tier of 21 leagues chasing perfection in conference play. Bryant (America East), Yale (Ivy), Akron (MAC), McNeese (Southland), Southern (SWAC), Nebraska-Omaha (Summit) and Utah Valley (WAC) are the last teams standing in that department. (With Duke, Houston, Michigan State, Auburn and Saint Mary’s still undefeated in the bigger conferences.)
By no small margin, McNeese is the one of the seven most likely to get it done. Following Monday’s win at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, KenPom gives the Cowboys about a 26 percent chance of going 10-0 the rest of the way.
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