NCAA Tournament March Madness

#262 Rice

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

On the surface, Rice's season trajectory is a bit of a mixed bag with some sizable obstacles keeping them far from being an at-large bid contender. A telling aspect is their performance against high-caliber teams; Rice has taken hard hits from ranked juggernauts like Houston, getting trounced in a demonstration of the chasm between top-tier programs and their own level of play. Their defense, often suspect, crumbled in these matchups, revealing a vulnerability that stronger teams have exploited ruthlessly. Though they have snagged a noteworthy victory against Memphis, one swallow does not a summer make. This win is an outlier when weighed against losses to teams like Southern Florida and Tulsa which indicates inconsistency. Rice's sparse high-impact wins and multiple losses to higher-ranked teams show they haven't built a resume strong enough to argue for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament without securing their conference tournament title for an automatic qualification.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/10Harvard198L89-76
11/15@Texas40L80-64
11/21(N)Indiana St32L103-88
11/22(N)New Mexico23L90-56
11/24(N)UC Irvine73L83-68
11/30TN Martin185W98-78
12/2Houston Chr356W65-56
12/6@Houston3L75-39
12/13Incarnate Word347W80-57
12/16@Northwestern LA325W76-51
12/20Prairie View343W82-56
12/22Louisiana145L84-67
1/3@Tulane144L84-59
1/6UT San Antonio277L89-82
1/12@South Florida72L81-73
1/16Charlotte115L81-79
1/20@Temple200W69-66
1/24FL Atlantic31L69-56
1/27Tulsa194L85-83
1/31@Memphis63W74-71
2/3@UT San Antonio277W80-76
2/7SMU76L95-69
2/10South Florida72L69-65
2/17@Tulsa194L93-82
2/21@UAB92W94-71
2/24East Carolina186W70-52
2/28Temple200L65-43
3/2@Wichita St159L87-66
3/6@Charlotte115L69-64
3/9North Texas87L71-55
3/13(N)Wichita St159L88-81