NCAA Tournament March Madness

#254 East Carolina

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

East Carolina’s placement is logical because its résumé juxtaposes a handful of eye-catching moments—a solid home victory over Memphis and gritty road wins at North Texas and Florida Atlantic—with a string of damaging setbacks, most notably heavy losses at Michigan State and at North Carolina and a pattern of conference defeats away from home. Many of the victories have come against lower-tier opposition and narrow escapes do not erase bad losses, while the lack of neutral-site or true marquee road wins leaves little to sell the team as an at-large choice. Given that balance, the clearest path into the NCAA field is capturing the conference’s automatic spot by winning the league tournament since meaningful wins against quality opponents would be required to overcome the résumé as it stands.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/4Ga Southern235W92-89
11/8@Richmond160L87-72
11/18@UNC Wilmington110L85-60
11/21Charleston So241L77-65
11/25(N)Michigan St9L89-56
11/27(N)St Bonaventure139L67-58
12/2MD E Shore350W68-56
12/6UNC Greensboro300L82-78
12/11Appalachian St195L67-54
12/14Buffalo199W73-70
12/17Presbyterian270W74-53
12/22@North Carolina29L99-51
12/31Tulane211L79-70
1/7@Temple165L75-67
1/11UAB127L87-85
1/14@South Florida47L82-71
1/18Charlotte183L73-70
1/21@Wichita St82L77-60
1/23@North Texas136W63-59
1/28Rice226L83-77
2/1@FL Atlantic129W76-75
2/7Temple165L81-73
2/11UT San Antonio340W88-72
2/14@Rice226W85-75
2/18Wichita St82L92-89
2/21@Charlotte183L68-56
2/25@UT San Antonio340W82-81
3/1Memphis134W84-68
3/5Tulsa63L93-66
3/8@UAB127L90-83