Projected NCAA Field of 64 (2023)

This is my sixth year of predicting the NCAA Tournament field. You should also check out Ricky Nelson’s site as he has done the same exercise independently of me.

Once again, I went through the selection process and you can see my thoughts as it was done by clicking here.

The online selection show will be tomorrow (Monday) at Noon Central. Hopefully this link will work – NCAA Selection Show.

My yearly at-large matches with the national selection committee: 2017: 17 of 21 2018: 19 of 21 2019: 20 of 21 2021: 17 of 20 2022: 15 of 19 2023: 19 of 21

Pool A (42)

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference: Penn State Altoona American Rivers Conference: Coe American Southwest Conference: East Texas Baptist Atlantic East Conference: Marymount Centennial Conference: Johns Hopkins City University of New York Athletic Conference: Hunter Coast-To-Coast Conference: Salisbury College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin: North Park Commonwealth Coast Conference: Wentworth Commonwealth Conference: Eastern Empire 8 Athletic Conference: Alfred Freedom Conference: Stevens Great Northeast Athletic Conference: Lasell Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference: Transylvania Landmark Conference: Juniata Liberty League: Ithaca Little East Conference: UMass Dartmouth Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference: Framingham State Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association: Hope Midwest Conference: Cornell Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Gustavus Adolphus New England Small College Athletic Conference: Wesleyan (Conn.) New England Women’s and Men’s Athletics Conference: MIT New Jersey Athletic Conference: Ramapo North Atlantic Conference: Eastern Nazarene North Coast Athletic Conference: Wittenberg Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference: Edgewood Northwest Conference: Pacific Lutheran Ohio Athletic Conference: Otterbein Old Dominion Athletic Conference: Washington & Lee Presidents’ Athletic Conference: Bethany Skyline Conference: Manhattanville Southern Athletic Association: Berry Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference: Trinity (Texas) St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Greenville State University of New York Athletic Conference: Cortland United East Conference: Gallaudet University Athletic Association: NYU Upper Midwest Athletic Conference: Northwestern USA South Athletic Conference: Meredith Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Wisconsin-Whitewater

Pool B (1)

Covenant

Pool C (21)

Taking a look at Ricky’s selections, we disagree on a few teams. He has Christopher Newport, Williams and UW-Eau Claire. I have Mount Union, Ohio Wesleyan and Stevenson. I think his might be safer if you know how Region VI and Region VIII will rank their teams. He also went with the 5th New England team that I refused to do. The Christopher Newport pick harkens back to the year Ithaca got in with the same statistics. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now, but if it happens then we have a trend. I picked Stevenson only because of my faith in Region V. It can instead be Franklin & Marshall but the criteria didn’t order them (for me) that way.

If you read my Selection Eve post then you know at the end it was just a murky mess of teams. I think starting with UW-Platteville (17th selection), I’m a little unsure. That’s a lot of bubble teams in my mind, which made this exercise difficult.

I haven’t written a lot about he Region X Regional this year because I don’t believe there will be one. I believe we need 3 teams in California or 3 teams in Texas for it to happen. I don’t believe the NCAA will use 6 flights for a Region X Regional. Where is everyone going? I don’t know. I think the West Coast teams will head to the upper Midwest. St Paul, Chicago, Oshkosh, St Peter (MN) or maybe even St Louis. What’s funny is that you could be sent to Emory (Atlanta) but you will not be sent to the Northeast because of the mystical 3-timezone rule (which doesn’t apply to Atlanta for some reason). To be frank, if I was the NCAA, I’d send them to the Northeast and get them to shut-up. They (CMS, La Verne and PLU) are down this year. Have them come up and play those teams and get beat and then you never have to do it again. The NCAA isn’t that smart, however. As for the two Texas teams, I think one will go to Emory and one will go to the Northeast. These are just guesses based on history.

Regardless of everything, best of luck if you need a bid! I’ll update tomorrow when the selections are made.

Update – I missed on two and I feel like I did an amazing job with that. I guessed right on the Region V love (Stevenson) and the ordering. I guessed right on Mount Union. I figured the New England Region would get 5 but I was happy to miss there and only go with 4. My honor is intact. Christopher Newport (like Ithaca before them) is an interesting selection. An article on that is probably needed in the future on this. UW-Platteville, for the second year, gets snubbed. I was really worried about their Ranked Results and that may have been a point of contention for the Selection Committee. More in a separate post later today.