We here at NAIA Hoops Report are pumped to welcome Red Banner Roundball on board to the site. Red Banner Roundball has a passion for putting together projections for the NAIA National Tournament. He has been doing it for years and now that the NAIA is 1 Division we have teamed up with them to help bring you a NAIA Bracketology Report. Red Banner will act as our “Joey Brackets” per say as we continue to look for ways to bring you the best NAIA Hoops Coverage around!
We will start this article by saying that this is meant to be a fun article and by no means do we expect to be 100% accurate with the projections. We have done a lot of research on auto bids, ARC’s, RPI’s and SoS’s and used the data at hand to do our best to project what could happen with the NAIA National Tournament this season. The NAIA finally released the full details for the league by league auto-bid breakdowns. There will be 37 auto-bids that are assigned, leaving just 11 at-large selections. You can find those here:
The Bracket
Overall Seeding
Field Notes:
First four on the outside: Dakota Wesleyan, Holy Cross, Huntington, Thomas More
Next four on the outside: Saint Francis (IN), Columbia (MO), Texas Wesleyan, Middle Georgia State
Moving in: Mayville State, Governors State, Cumberlands, Reinhardt, Rochester, St Xavier, Vanguard, Wayland Baptist
ARC Rankings
GREAT LAKES
Mid-South Conference
River States Conference
MIDWEST
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference
NORTH/CENTRAL
North Star Athletic Conference
SOUTHEAST
Southern States Athletic Conference
The Sun Conference
SOUTHWEST
Red River Athletic Conference
Sooner Athletic Conference
WEST
Bid Breakdown
In our 1st two Bracketology Reports, we had most of the auto-bids correct, but did have a couple wrong. Now that the NAIA officially posted the bids, we have updated the bid breakdown sheet accordingly. There are just 11 at-large spots available and you can make arguments for about 20 teams. It will be interesting to see how the selection committee values teams who have played 20+ games against those who will only get between 10-15 games in. Another interesting thing to watch for is how the selection committee works in teams who lost with players who were out to Covid or injuries. If teams who lost those games or even multiple games during a 10-14 day period affects bids and seeding or not. Lastly, it will be interesting to see what the committee does with some of the teams who have fallen apart late in the season. We have a few teams who seemed to be locks a couple weeks ago who have now lost 5 of 6 or 4 of their last 6 games. Do those teams need to now make a deep run in their Conference Tournaments? A lot of tough decisions coming up by the selection committee!
Bubble Watch
| TEAM | CONF | STK | Last 10 | RPI* | SOS* |
| Rochester | WHAC | W2 | 7-2 | 1 | 21 |
| Dillard | GCAC | W1 | 5-2 | 11 | 161 |
| Jamestown | GPAC | L1 | 7-3 | 17 | 185 |
| Huntington | CL | L1 | 6-4 | 20 | 31 |
| Dakota Wesleyan | GPAC | L3 | 3-7 | 24 | 120 |
| Middle Georgia | SSAC | W1 | 6-4 | 26 | 63 |
| Northwestern (IA) | GPAC | W9 | 9-1 | 29 | 115 |
| Columbia | AMC | L1 | 8-2 | 32 | 102 |
| Madonna | WHAC | W5 | 6-2 | 33 | 37 |
| Cumberlands | MSC | W2 | 6-4 | 35 | 69 |
| Mid-America Christian | SAC | W2 | 7-3 | 36 | 95 |
| Mayville State | NSAA | W4 | 7-3 | 38 | 109 |
| Ottawa | KCAC | W4 | 7-3 | 39 | 71 |
| Texas A&M Texarkana | RRAC | W1 | 9-1 | 52 | 192 |
| Valley City State | NSAA | W1 | 6-4 | 53 | 57 |
| Carroll | FC | L1 | 9-1 | 62 | 119 |
| Grace | CL | W1 | 4-6 | 71 | 126 |
| Lyon | AMC | W4 | 8-2 | 87 | 141 |
| The Master’s | GSAC | W3 | 7-3 | 133 | 197 |
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