Here are the following teams that are in for sure: * means automatic qualifier: Total 59 West 1. Cal Poly* 2. Idaho State* 3. Stanford* 4. Pepperdine* 5. BYU* 6. UCLA 7. Santa Clara 8. Portland 9. USC 10. Cal 11. WSU 12. Wash 13. LMU Central 1. Creighton* 2. Northwestern State* 3. SMU* 4. Tennessee* 5. Denver* 6. Nebraska* 7. Texas A & M 8. Texas Great Lakes 1. UW-Milwaukee* 2. Eastern Illinois* 3. Miami, OH* 4. Oakland* 5. Ohio State* 6. Cincinnati* 7. Purdue 8. Notre Dame 9. Michigan 10. Kentucky 11. Wisconsin Southeast 1. Central Florida* 2. Furman* 3. UNC* 4. Charlotte 5. Clemson 6. Florida State 7. Auburn 8. Wake Forest 9. Duke 10. NC State 11. Florida Mid-Atlantic 1. Radford* 2. American* 3. James Madison* 4. Loyola* 5. Richmond* 6. Princeton* 7. West Virginia 8. Penn State 9. Maryland 10. Virginia 11. Villanova Northeast 1. Central Conn* 2. UCONN* 3. Hartford* 4. Dartmouth 5. Rhode Island The following are the bubble teams competing for 5 spots (clumped by region): ** are teams I think have strongest chances. Utah** ASU* San Diego* St Mary’s Missouri* Mississippi* Oklahoma SLU Kansas Oklahoma State Michigan State** Dayton** Marquette* Indiana South Carolina** Navy** Rutgers* William/Mary* Georgetown Richmond Yale** Harvard BC Hofstra St Johns US Military And finally, the breakdown by conference of the 59 I have in: Pac 10 – 6 WCC – 4 Big 10 – 5 ACC –8 SEC – 4 Big East – 4 Big 12 – 3 Ivy - 2 Because of the lopsided conference breakdowns, I think the Big 12 gets at least one more and the Ivy might get one too. I don't agree with it, but it happens every year.
Top Four Any guesses on which schools will be the top four seeds? Obviously Stanford is No. 1 and UNC is No. 2. With two wins over the weekend against UW and WSU (and a Texas A&M loss to Nebraska today), odds are that UCLA will get the No. 3 seed. The No. 4 seed could go to a number of teams--Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Texas, Texas A&M, Portland. It will be interesting to see how the NCAA will decide that.
Without a doubt, #1 Stanford, #2 UNC, and #3 UCLA. I would have to think that Pepperdine would be the next from the west. They won the conference so I cannot see Portland or Santa Clara getting it over them. I can, however, see a non-west team get it to 'balance' it out. With that said, Texas and Texas A&M (and maybe UCONN for an east representative) are the only teams worthy of a look. They would have to go with A & M then b/c they beat Texas and they made it to the conference finals (and Texas did not). So I guess I am betting on the obvious 3 and A & M.