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 Tech182L81-79
11/5@Creighton75L92-76
11/12Southern Indiana340W89-74
11/16W Michigan274W83-78
11/20@Missouri50L102-68
11/23S Carolina St356W82-81
11/29(N)Air Force345W80-63
12/3Portland St145L77-71
12/6@N Colorado139L89-87
12/9@Wyoming97L106-79
12/13Prairie View312W97-85
12/20@Kansas St101L106-76
12/31@N Dakota St117L84-61
1/7@St Thomas MN104L99-86
1/10Denver221W82-72
1/15Missouri KC358W99-83
1/17@North Dakota290L96-80
1/21@NE Omaha253W68-64
1/24St Thomas MN104L90-78
1/29Oral Roberts308W77-69
1/31N Dakota St117L89-84
2/4@Missouri KC358W82-75
2/7@S Dakota St217W68-67
2/11North Dakota290L72-71
2/19@Denver221L90-70
2/21@Oral Roberts308L67-62
2/25NE Omaha253W89-72
2/28S Dakota St217W75-70
3/6(N)NE Omaha253L76-62