NCAA Tournament March Madness

#282 South Dakota

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

South Dakota projects as an automatic-qualifier candidate because its body of work lacks a true resume-making victory and is punctuated by a string of damaging road blowouts at blue-blood nonconference opponents, which a selection committee will treat as fatal for an at-large bid. The team’s best moments — a gritty road win at South Dakota State, a competitive trip to Creighton, and a neutral-site victory over Air Force alongside solid conference home wins like the one over Oral Roberts — show it can win important games, but those are outweighed by blowout losses at Missouri and Kansas State and tough defeats away at Wyoming and North Dakota State that expose inconsistency away from home. With only modest quality wins and several chances to be run off the floor against top-tier programs, the simplest, likeliest route to the tournament is winning the Summit League’s automatic qualifier.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/3Utah Tech185L81-79
11/5@Creighton76L92-76
11/12Southern Indiana339W89-74
11/16W Michigan273W83-78
11/20@Missouri51L102-68
11/23S Carolina St356W82-81
11/29(N)Air Force345W80-63
12/3Portland St146L77-71
12/6@N Colorado141L89-87
12/9@Wyoming98L106-79
12/13Prairie View302W97-85
12/20@Kansas St99L106-76
12/31@N Dakota St114L84-61
1/7@St Thomas MN108L99-86
1/10Denver235W82-72
1/15Missouri KC358W99-83
1/17@North Dakota276L96-80
1/21@NE Omaha261W68-64
1/24St Thomas MN108L90-78
1/29Oral Roberts309W77-69
1/31N Dakota St114L89-84
2/4@Missouri KC358W82-75
2/7@S Dakota St220W68-67
2/11North Dakota276L72-71
2/19@Denver235L90-70
2/21@Oral Roberts309L67-62
2/25NE Omaha261W89-72
2/28S Dakota St220W75-70
3/6(N)NE Omaha261L76-62