NCAA Tournament March Madness

#272 Howard

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Projected seed: 16 (automatic qualifier, play-in game) (automatic qualifier)

Howard's projection as the Mid-Eastern AC automatic qualifier slated for the opening play-in makes sense because its résumé contains a handful of genuine road and neutral wins, most notably at Drexel and at UNC Wilmington and a neutral-site victory over Niagara that show the program can win away from home. Those bright spots are offset by damaging defeats, most glaringly the blowouts at Duke and at Northwestern and by surprising setbacks to lower-tier conference foes such as Grambling and Maryland Eastern Shore, which leave the résumé thin on quality signature wins. The path forward is simple: winning the conference tournament through matchups that include Coppin State and Norfolk State and a possible date with Yale would erase the doubts and secure the automatic berth, but absent that the mix of poor nonconference results and inconsistent league play explains a bottom-line placement in the play-in.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/3Missouri59L88-67
11/9Grambling279L73-70
11/13Alcorn St344W72-64
11/19@Stetson320L64-60
11/22(N)Niagara350W80-70
11/23@Duke3L93-56
11/29@Mt St Mary's297L79-75
12/9(N)NC A&T296W73-69
12/13(N)Hampton243W61-57
12/16@Drexel212W74-66
12/20@UNC Wilmington117W67-66
12/30@Northwestern62L80-60
1/3@S Carolina St361L58-57
1/10@MD E Shore326L69-57
1/12Delaware St359W84-58
1/17@NC Central347W83-69
1/24Morgan St356L78-77
1/26@Coppin St36485%
1/31Norfolk St30769%
2/7S Carolina St36189%
2/9Yale7014%
2/14MD E Shore32674%
2/16@Delaware St35972%
2/21NC Central34781%
2/28@Morgan St35670%
3/2Coppin St36494%
3/5@Norfolk St30747%