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All 503 regular games are done. We’ve completed the entire regular season. Now it’s time to crown conference champions and hand out automatic qualifiers.
On Sunday, we’ll find out who’s in and who’s out in the NCAA Tournament with Selection Sunday (9 PM, ESPNU). And with that, it’s once again time to dissect what we might see when the 17-team field is announced.
This season has been fun, exciting, weird, crazy, unusual, different, you name it. The field is wide open and the title is up for anyone to take. There might be some well-known teams missing out once again.
If you need a refresher from last week, check out what the projected field looked like.
Automatic Qualifiers
There are only nine AQs, and you can thank the ACC for the odd number (please find a sixth team ASAP). The team with the top seed in their respective conference tournament takes the automatic qualifier.
2019 College Crosse Bracketology Automatic Qualifiers 7.0
| Team | Conference | Record | RPI | SOS | vs. 1-5 | vs. 6-10 | vs. 11-15 | vs. 16-20 | vs. 21+ | Avg. RPI Ws | Avg. RPI Ls | Significant Ws | Significant Ls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Conference | Record | RPI | SOS | vs. 1-5 | vs. 6-10 | vs. 11-15 | vs. 16-20 | vs. 21+ | Avg. RPI Ws | Avg. RPI Ls | Significant Ws | Significant Ls |
| Penn State | Big Ten | 12-1 | 1 | 11 | 1-1 | 1-0 | 4-0 | 0-0 | 6-0 | 22.91666667 | 4 | NA | Yale (4) |
| Penn | Ivy League | 9-3 | 5 | 9 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 2-0 | 0-0 | 6-0 | 32.55555556 | 3.666666667 | Yale (4) | Maryland (7) |
| Loyola | Patriot League | 11-3 | 6 | 12 | 1-1 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 2-0 | 7-1 | 28.63636364 | 12 | Virginia (2) | Towson (9), Boston University (24) |
| Denver | Big East | 9-4 | 14 | 18 | 0-1 | 1-1 | 0-1 | 2-0 | 6-1 | 33.66666667 | 12.25 | Towson (9) | Villanova (15), Princeton (23) |
| UMass | CAA | 10-4 | 18 | 37 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 9-1 | 41.9 | 19.25 | Towson (9) | Army West Point (20), Hofstra (40) |
| High Point | SoCon | 12-2 | 19 | 46 | 2-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 10-2 | 40.66666667 | 48.5 | Virginia (2), Duke (3) | Jacksonville (41), St. John's (56) |
| Marist | MAAC | 8-6 | 33 | 40 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 8-3 | 57.125 | 23.5 | NA | Bucknell (35), Detroit Mercy (47) |
| Mount St. Mary's | NEC | 9-6 | 36 | 35 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 9-3 | 51.66666667 | 24.83333333 | Richmond (25), Robert Morris (32) | UMBC (57) |
| Stony Brook | America East | 9-5 | 39 | 56 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 9-4 | 51.55555556 | 32 | Brown (30) | Hartford (66) |
So with that, more than half of the automatic qualifiers changed hands.
- Stony Brook takes the America East
- Denver takes the Big East
- UMass takes the CAA
- Mount St. Mary’s takes the NEC
- High Point takes the SoCon
At-Large Candidates
Eight more teams will be picked to join the nine qualifiers. Some blue-blood programs will be left out of the NCAA Tournament.
2019 College Crosse Bracketology At-Large Candidates 7.0
| Team | Conference | Record | RPI | SOS | vs. 1-5 | vs. 6-10 | vs. 11-15 | vs. 16-20 | vs. 21+ | Avg. RPI Ws | Avg. RPI Ls | Significant Ws | Significant Ls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Conference | Record | RPI | SOS | vs. 1-5 | vs. 6-10 | vs. 11-15 | vs. 16-20 | vs. 21+ | Avg. RPI Ws | Avg. RPI Ls | Significant Ws | Significant Ls |
| Virginia | ACC | 12-3 | 2 | 8 | 0-1 | 2-1 | 1-0 | 2-0 | 7-0 | 26.33333333 | 9.333333333 | NA | Duke (3), Loyola (6), High Point (19) |
| Duke | ACC | 11-4 | 3 | 1 | 2-0 | 3-2 | 1-0 | 0-2 | 5-0 | 23.63636364 | 13.25 | Virginia (2) | Notre Dame (8), Syracuse (10), North Carolina (16), High Point (19) |
| Yale | Ivy League | 11-2 | 4 | 16 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 1-0 | 8-0 | 31.81818182 | 10 | Penn State (1) | Penn (5), Villanova (15) |
| Maryland | Big Ten | 11-3 | 7 | 13 | 1-1 | 0-1 | 2-1 | 1-0 | 7-0 | 26.27272727 | 6.666666667 | Penn (5) | Notre Dame (8), Johns Hopkins (11) |
| Notre Dame | ACC | 8-5 | 8 | 2 | 1-2 | 2-0 | 1-2 | 1-0 | 3-1 | 21.125 | 11 | Duke (3), Maryland (7) | Cornell (12), Ohio State (13), Richmond (25) |
| Towson | CAA | 9-4 | 9 | 7 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 1-2 | 1-1 | 6-0 | 28.77777778 | 11.75 | Loyola (6) | Cornell (12), Denver (14), UMass (18) |
| Syracuse | ACC | 9-4 | 10 | 10 | 1-1 | 0-1 | 2-0 | 2-1 | 4-1 | 20.77777778 | 18.75 | Duke (3) | North Carolina (16), Colgate (49) |
| Johns Hopkins | Big Ten | 7-6 | 11 | 4 | 0-2 | 1-3 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 5-0 | 23.57142857 | 6.833333333 | Maryland (7) | Ohio State (13) |
| Cornell | Ivy League | 10-4 | 12 | 5 | 0-3 | 2-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 8-0 | 34.7 | 5 | Notre Dame (8), Towson (9) | NA |
| Ohio State | Big Ten | 8-4 | 13 | 22 | 0-1 | 1-1 | 1-0 | 1-0 | 5-2 | 27.25 | 16 | Notre Dame (8), Johns Hopkins (11) | Rutgers (22), Michigan (34) |
| Villanova | Big East | 8-6 | 15 | 6 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 0-1 | 6-2 | 32.375 | 18.16666667 | Yale (4), Denver (14) | Georgetown (17), Drexel (31), Providence (48) |
| North Carolina | ACC | 8-7 | 16 | 3 | 1-2 | 1-3 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 6-0 | 36.5 | 7.714285714 | Duke (3), Syracuse (10) | NA |
| Georgetown | Big East | 11-4 | 17 | 32 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 10-1 | 43.09090909 | 16.75 | Villanova (15) | Marquette (38) |
| Army West Point | Patriot League | 10-4 | 20 | 28 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 9-2 | 43 | 16.5 | UMass (18) | Boston University (24), Lehigh (26) |
Bracketology Prediction 7.0
Before I unveil what I have, here’s everything you need to know for creating the bracket. The cliffnotes from the NCAA are below:
- Eligibility and availability of student-athletes for NCAA championships
- Won-lost record
- Strength of schedule index [based on team’s 10 highest rated contests; (2 games against the same opponent will count as two contests)]
- Results of the RPI
- Record against ranked teams 1-5; 6-10; 11-15; 16-20; 21+
- Average RPI wins (average RPI of all wins)
- Average RPI loss (average RPI of all losses)
- Head-to-head competition
- Results versus common opponents
- Significant wins and losses (wins against teams ranked higher in the RPI and losses against teams ranked lower in the RPI)
- Location of contests
- Any media or coaches polls do not matter
For another week, here we go:
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Last Two In: Towson, Cornell
First Four Out: Johns Hopkins, North Carolina, Ohio State, Army West Point
In this edition, a lot of the matchups are due to geography.
The play-in game usually pits the two AQs with the lowest RPIs, which would be Marist and Mount St. Mary’s. However, things can change, such as Robert Morris having to play Canisius in their play-in game while Richmond (a lower RPI than Robert Morris) faced off against Albany in the first round. If what happen last year stays the same, look for Marist and Stony Brook to play each other since they’re in-state opponents.
Notre Dame-Denver is always a lock when both teams make the tournament and one isn’t a seed. That was evident last season. Maryland-Towson and Duke-High Point are in-state battle, Mount St. Mary’s is close to Virginia, and same with UMass and Yale. So that left us with Loyola and Penn as seeded teams with Cornell and Syracuse as the unseeded opponents. Since the selection committee tries to avoid conference matchups in the first round, Loyola hosts Cornell, while Penn hosts Syracuse.