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| The Field of 64 is set and this time, the MIAC has FOUR teams primed to have their names called Monday afternoon beginning at 1:30 PM. Get the champagne ready and be ready to raise your glasses to Bethel, Concordia, GAC and SMU! |
So I wanted to get something out on this Sunday night as the last day of conference playoff championship games wrapped up. Going into the MIAC Championship Game yesterday, we knew that there were at least three teams from the MIAC that were certain to receive bids into the NCAA Tournament - Concordia, Bethel and GAC. Bethel, of course, received the conference's AQ with their win over Concordia. The Cobbers as of yesterday morning (Saturday 2-28) were at #10 in the NPI rankings while the Royals were #17. With Bethel's win over Concordia, the Royals saw their NPI ranking shoot from #17 all the way up to #13 so "Herbie" was indeed correct when he told me afterward that they most definitely expected to be in a position to host. Concordia meanwhile did not fall precipitously as some may have feared; only down to #12 which is safely within the top 16 teams so the Cobbers are still in excellent position to host.
The big uncertainty meanwhile has swirled around SMU's chances and since their loss to Concordia this last Thursday night (2-26) in the semifinal round, their hopes of being able to receive one of the 21 at-large bids seemed, well, uncertain at best. At one point yesterday morning (Saturday 2-28), their NPI ranking was at #39 which seemed to have them positioned to get that very last at-large bid. However, there were still a number of moving pieces still in play as of this morning with the remaining conference championship games to be played and possible "bid thieves" that could potentially steal that at-large bid that SMU was desperately trying to hang onto. In fact, it looked as if the Cardinals' hopes might've gone up in smoke at one point this afternoon when TCNJ knocked off William Paterson in the NJAC Championship Game. However, from subsequent posts on X by Scott Peterson (@scott_peterson4), my initial fears of SMU's demise proved to be premature (thankfully) and, if you take a look at the latest NPI rankings that were released earlier this evening, you'll see that the Cardinals are indeed still at #39 which allows them to secure that last at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. You can bet that Head Coach Courtney Shelton, her staff and her team must've been sweating bullets big time earlier today but they can now all heave a collective sigh of relief and look forward to an exciting Selection Monday tomorrow. Congratulations indeed to SMU!!
And this leads to the bigger point that I was making over the last few years when the MIAC was only getting one team into the Dance because of the idiotic round-robin conference schedule that allowed you to play only three non-conference games. It was bad enough when we were having to deal with an equally-idiotic regional ranking system that thankfully died a swift death. But in the new world with NPI, coaches and administrators finally realized that the MIAC had to adapt to the new reality that we're now living in and adjust the conference schedule that allows teams to schedule more games against non-conference teams; specifically against those that have reasonably high NPI rankings that allows more teams to have a chance to position themselves to get into the NCAA Tournament and now we FINALLY see the rewards being reaped. And what this does in turn is that it gives the conference much more visibility and much more credence than it ever had before and you have to believe that this is also a big boost for all the schools in the conference in terms of recruiting. How cool is it now to see the MIAC positioned to get FOUR teams into the Dance - especially when you see across the River where the WIAC - for the second year in a row - is positioned to once again get five teams into the NCAA Tournament. Now the MIAC is FINALLY positioned to run with the big dogs and it's high time if you ask me.
So, the URLs to not only the current NPI rankings but also the D3 Hoops website that lists the 64 teams are listed below. The only things we don't know right now are the brackets and actual pairings but that will all come out tomorrow afternoon (Monday 3-2) at 1:30 PM Central time.
I don't know about you but this is ALWAYS my favorite time of the year. 😉
https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/48990
https://www.d3hoops.com/playoffs/women/2026/projected-womens-bracket
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