NCAA Tournament March Madness

#104 UC Irvine

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Projection: likely out

UC Irvine’s résumé is anchored by the kinds of conference and road victories committees like to see, with wins at CS Fullerton, Long Beach State, CS Bakersfield and San Jose State, neutral-site triumphs over North Dakota State and Norfolk State, and a statement home performance against Cal Poly that showcased their offense. Those high points are offset by damaging nonconference setbacks, most notably the lop-sided defeat at Belmont and the quiet neutral outing at New Mexico State, and by a string of tight losses at Utah Valley, Northern Iowa, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and Hawaii that expose inconsistency away from home. The team’s defensive identity has kept them competitive and delivered signature wins, but the combination of a soft early slate and those costly blemishes makes a lower-seed placement reasonable and leaves their only clear path to meaningfully improve the résumé hinging on a conference-tournament run.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/7Cal Baptist106L69-61
11/15Weber St198W79-70
11/19@Utah Valley90L79-72
11/22Northern Iowa72L70-69
11/25(N)New Mexico St184L57-45
11/26(N)S Dakota St220W64-52
11/30@San Jose St225W72-63
12/4UC Riverside258W73-60
12/6CS Northridge175W85-71
12/19Belmont69L84-58
12/21(N)N Dakota St113W74-73
12/22(N)Norfolk St327W89-70
1/1@CS Bakersfield326W81-77
1/3@CS Fullerton168W86-64
1/8Long Beach St231W74-64
1/10@Hawaii107L67-66
1/17@UC Davis159L75-72
1/22@UC Riverside258W80-66
1/24@UC San Diego118W61-59
1/29Hawaii107W87-76
2/5CS Bakersfield326W78-62
2/7@UC Santa Barbara130L84-79
2/12@Cal Poly212L79-73
2/14CS Fullerton168W86-65
2/19@Long Beach St231W69-58
2/21UC San Diego118L71-69
2/26@CS Northridge175W68-67
2/28UC Santa Barbara130W64-60
3/5Cal Poly212W107-85
3/7UC Davis159W79-69
3/13(N)CS Northridge175W93-78
3/14(N)Hawaii107L71-64