NCAA Tournament March Madness

#277 UC Riverside

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

UC Riverside’s résumé makes the case that the clearest path to the NCAA tournament is winning the Big West tournament. Their resume’s highlights are road wins at North Dakota and San Diego and league victories over Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton, but those scalps come against suspect opposition and are overshadowed by bruising defeats at power programs such as BYU, UCLA and New Mexico and a lopsided home loss to Hawaii. Tight home setbacks to CS Bakersfield and UC San Diego read as squandered chances to build résumé momentum, and the team lacks a true signature road or neutral-site triumph that would give the committee margin for error. The remaining slate, which features visits to UC San Diego and Hawaii along with home games against CS Bakersfield and UC Davis and a trip to UC Santa Barbara, are the only remaining ways to alter the narrative, so without winning the conference tournament their at-large case remains tenuous.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/6@North Dakota290W74-70
11/11@New Mexico45L82-68
11/15North Dakota290L76-74
11/18@Cal Baptist118L80-57
11/21@San Diego214W85-71
11/24Grambling276W83-74
11/29@Utah Tech184L77-69
12/4@UC Irvine119L73-60
12/6@Cal Poly233W88-84
12/13@BYU22L100-53
12/20@St Thomas MN121L92-78
12/23@UCLA41L97-65
1/1Hawaii91L88-45
1/8@CS Bakersfield316L67-66
1/10UC San Diego113L69-66
1/15@Long Beach St240L88-73
1/17CS Fullerton171W81-72
1/22UC Irvine119L80-66
1/24@UC Davis156L74-66
1/29Long Beach St240W71-61
1/31Cal Poly233L94-87
2/5@CS Fullerton171L78-72
2/7@CS Northridge178L88-74
2/12UC Santa Barbara117L76-68
2/14@UC San Diego11312%
2/19CS Bakersfield31672%
2/21UC Davis15636%
2/26@UC Santa Barbara11712%
2/28CS Northridge17840%
3/5@Hawaii918%
3/6@Hawaii918%