NCAA Tournament March Madness

#96 Hawaii

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Projection: likely out

Hawaii’s profile shows a team that can defend its way into close games but still lacks the kind of signature road victories that silence doubters, so the resume is a mix of encouraging and concerning results. The narrow outing at Oregon and the dismantling of UC Riverside on the road are the sort of performances that demonstrate the defense’s impact, yet a neutral or home setback to Arizona State and the loss at UC San Diego dilute those bright spots and highlight offensive inconsistency. Many of the nonconference blowouts came against low-end opponents and therefore do little to offset the damage from poor away results, but a stretch of conference matchups — including trips to UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara along with regular tests against Cal Poly, Long Beach State, UC San Diego and CS Bakersfield — hands the Rainbow Warriors obvious chances to collect meaningful road wins and avoid further harmful losses; how they defend and steady the offense through that slate will determine whether this body of work looks tournament-caliber.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/4@Oregon79L60-59
11/9East Texas A&M319W100-74
11/12MS Valley St365W88-56
11/14Manhattan309W86-56
11/15Utah Tech206W68-62
11/20Arizona St85L83-76
11/28North Dakota314W92-55
12/4UC Davis172W75-69
12/6CS Fullerton232W69-59
12/13UTEP262W66-61
1/1@UC Riverside280W88-45
1/3@UC San Diego93L83-73
1/10UC Irvine12772%
1/11UC Irvine12772%
1/15@Cal Poly23975%
1/17@UC Santa Barbara16461%
1/22CS Bakersfield29594%
1/23CS Bakersfield29594%
1/25CS Northridge19885%
1/29@UC Irvine12751%
1/31@Long Beach St24276%
2/7UC San Diego9360%
2/8UC San Diego9360%
2/12@CS Bakersfield29584%
2/14@CS Northridge19868%
2/19Cal Poly23989%
2/20Cal Poly23989%
2/22UC Santa Barbara16480%
2/26@UC Davis17263%
2/28@CS Fullerton23274%
3/5UC Riverside28093%
3/6UC Riverside28093%
3/7Long Beach St24290%
3/8Long Beach St24290%