NCAA Tournament March Madness

#237 Rice

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

Rice’s resume argues strongly for an automatic bid being the cleanest path because the profile contains a couple of resume-building road wins and a neutral victory that prove they can win away from home, but it is otherwise laden with damaging defeats that a selection committee will weigh heavily. The wins at Wichita State and at East Carolina along with the neutral win over Oral Roberts are legitimately useful, yet they are offset by lopsided road losses at Tennessee and Tulsa plus nonconference setbacks at Oregon and Pepperdine that leave a shortage of marquee victories. Remaining conference games give Rice chances to pick up quality road wins and to finish with a solid home result against UT San Antonio, but those opportunities are scattered and not guaranteed to erase the bad losses. Given the balance of quality wins, the severity of the worst losses, and the need for more neutral-site or top-tier road scalps, winning the conference tournament looks like the most realistic route onto the NCAA field.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/7@Oregon98L67-63
11/11SF Austin99L81-69
11/14East Texas A&M295W71-64
11/17@Tennessee21L91-66
11/20Tarleton St182L90-74
11/24(N)Kennesaw165L89-84
11/25@FGCU228L78-63
11/26(N)Oral Roberts330W81-62
12/3Texas St282W77-72
12/13Arkansas St159W77-76
12/20@Pepperdine273L84-62
12/31@Tulsa57L97-48
1/3Memphis105L76-70
1/7@Wichita St96W66-64
1/11Charlotte172L74-73
1/14@UT San Antonio348W89-73
1/21Temple152L69-65
1/24Tulsa57L87-81
1/28@East Carolina275W83-77
1/31@Charlotte17227%
2/4North Texas14943%
2/8@UAB12319%
2/11FL Atlantic9728%
2/14East Carolina27569%
2/22@Tulane19432%
2/25South Florida6919%
3/1@Temple15224%
3/4@North Texas14923%
3/8UT San Antonio34886%