NCAA Tournament March Madness

#308 Loyola-Chicago

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

The projection makes sense because Loyola-Chicago’s season contains a handful of respectable moments — a neutral-site win over Santa Clara, a road victory at Rhode Island and solid nonconference wins over Princeton and Cleveland State — but those are overwhelmed by damaging results including the heavy defeat at George Washington, neutral setbacks to Northern Iowa and San Jose State and multiple lopsided road losses at Wichita State, Dayton and St Bonaventure. A selection committee rewards road and neutral success against quality opponents and Loyola-Chicago simply lacks those signature victories while carrying too many bad losses. Remaining home dates against St Joseph’s PA and La Salle and a chance against Richmond are opportunities to repair the résumé but they are not the kinds of wins that erase the earlier damage, so the clearest path to the national tournament runs through winning the conference championship rather than relying on at-large favor.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/3Cleveland St320W91-88
11/6Mercyhurst299L73-65
11/9(N)North Texas144L64-62
11/13@Wichita St96L95-74
11/16Colorado St89L80-67
11/21N Illinois317L76-59
11/25(N)Northern Iowa107L72-51
11/26(N)San Jose St241L63-51
12/2C Michigan325W83-72
12/6Princeton225W73-68
12/14Chicago St357L84-75
12/17(N)San Francisco100L85-71
12/20(N)Santa Clara43W80-78
12/31@Rhode Island109W61-57
1/3Dayton80L70-68
1/7Davidson132L79-64
1/10@G Washington71L101-66
1/13George Mason78L82-74
1/16@Dayton80L78-51
1/20@St Bonaventure158L84-70
1/24Duquesne125L71-59
1/27St Joseph's PA16630%
1/30@VCU472%
2/3La Salle22341%
2/6@Davidson1329%
2/13St Louis243%
2/18@Fordham20119%
2/21@St Joseph's PA16614%
2/28Richmond11821%
3/4@St Louis241%
3/7G Washington7110%