NCAA Tournament March Madness

#314 E Illinois

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

That Eastern Illinois is projected to need the conference automatic qualifier makes sense because their résumé has a handful of respectable home conference wins, including Nicholls State and SIUE, but is overwhelmed by heavy road defeats at blueblood programs such as Kentucky, Purdue, Iowa State and Notre Dame and damaging losses in true road environments like Valparaiso and Central Arkansas, so they lack the kind of neutral or road signature victories a committee rewards. Their defense has shown it can hang in games at home while the offense has faltered away from campus, and those lopsided losses erase much of the good will from the league wins. Remaining dates give clear opportunities to shore up the profile with road tests at Southern Indiana and Morehead State and home chances against Tennessee Martin and Southeast Missouri State, yet without a string of impressive nonconference or neutral-site wins their cleanest path to the field is through winning their league tournament.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/4@Valparaiso162L66-63
11/7Nicholls St225W65-57
11/11@Notre Dame78L78-58
11/14@Kentucky24L99-53
11/25@Cent Arkansas211L81-60
11/28@Purdue7L109-62
12/6Lindenwood247L82-74
12/10E Kentucky256L68-59
12/14@Iowa St5L78-53
12/18SIUE260W76-72
1/1@SE Missouri St250L68-59
1/3@TN Martin203L65-61
1/8Tennessee Tech333W71-61
1/10Tennessee St240W74-70
1/13W Illinois356W57-55
1/15@Ark Little Rock293L74-63
1/22@Southern Indiana32443%
1/24@Morehead St29634%
1/29TN Martin20337%
1/31SE Missouri St25045%
2/5@Tennessee St24023%
2/7@Tennessee Tech33345%
2/10@W Illinois35659%
2/14Ark Little Rock29355%
2/19Morehead St29656%
2/21Southern Indiana32465%
2/26@Lindenwood24724%
2/28@SIUE26027%