NCAA Tournament March Madness

#106 UC Irvine

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Projected seed: 13 (automatic qualifier)

That placement makes sense because UC Irvine pairs a string of important road and neutral victories with a handful of damaging nonconference losses, yielding a resume that reads like a conference champion with limited national upside. The Anteaters collected road wins at CS Fullerton, Long Beach State and CS Bakersfield and claimed a neutral victory over South Dakota State, and they closed the regular slate with key home wins over UC Santa Barbara and UC Davis that show they can win in different spots. Those positives are offset by a heavy defeat at Belmont, a neutral setback at New Mexico State and several razor-thin losses at Utah Valley, Northern Iowa, Hawaii and on the road at UC Davis, so the conference tournament is the clear chance to erase blemishes and add a marquee neutral win that would fully justify moving up.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/7Cal Baptist112L69-61
11/15Weber St193W79-70
11/19@Utah Valley90L79-72
11/22Northern Iowa70L70-69
11/25(N)New Mexico St185L57-45
11/26(N)S Dakota St219W64-52
11/30@San Jose St237W72-63
12/4UC Riverside260W73-60
12/6CS Northridge176W85-71
12/19Belmont67L84-58
12/21(N)N Dakota St114W74-73
12/22(N)Norfolk St321W89-70
1/1@CS Bakersfield327W81-77
1/3@CS Fullerton169W86-64
1/8Long Beach St234W74-64
1/10@Hawaii115L67-66
1/17@UC Davis155L75-72
1/22@UC Riverside260W80-66
1/24@UC San Diego113W61-59
1/29Hawaii115W87-76
2/5CS Bakersfield327W78-62
2/7@UC Santa Barbara126L84-79
2/12@Cal Poly211L79-73
2/14CS Fullerton169W86-65
2/19@Long Beach St234W69-58
2/21UC San Diego113L71-69
2/26@CS Northridge176W68-67
2/28UC Santa Barbara126W64-60
3/5Cal Poly211W107-85
3/7UC Davis155W79-69