Welcome to our 3rd rendition of our Bracketology Report. As in years past, we have partnered with Red Banner Roundball (@RedBannerRB) to bring you the BEST NAIA Tournament coverage around! This is a FUN report that should help give insights to the automatic qualifiers, the teams we see as at-large bids at the moment, plus much, much more! Red Banner Roundball serves as our “Joey Brackets” type figure and in the final Bracketology Report last season, he went 48 of 48 on teams making the National Tournament. While this is the 1st Bracketology Report of the season, we do expect plenty of teams to play themselves both in and out of the tournament picture! With this just being the 2nd year of having 1 division in the NAIA and the 1st year with the full 64 team field, there are plenty of interesting perspectives on how it pans out. While we won’t always have all of the answers, hopefully you can use this as your guide as we finish the last two months of the season!
For the actual NAIA Selection Committee Policy you can read more here:
2021 NAIA Men’s Basketball National Selection Committee Policy
The Bracket
Tournament Seeding
ARC Ratings
Committee Appointment Process Area Ranking Committees (ARC) – Area Ranking Committees will consist of a representative from each conference in that local area as well as an at-large representative from the National Selection Committee.
GREAT LAKES
Mid-South Conference
River States Conference
SOUTHEAST
Southern States Athletic Conference
The Sun Conference
MIDWEST
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference
SOUTHWEST
Red River Athletic Conference
Sooner Athletic Confer
NORTH/CENTRAL
California Pacific ConferenceGreat Plains Athletic Conference
North Star Athletic ConferenceChicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference
North Star Athletic Conference
WEST
Pod Breakdown
Final Thoughts
We are just five days away from the 1st Conference Tournament starting up! It’s that time of year where anything can happen! Especially in the leagues where the tournament is the main factor in selecting the auto-bid winners. We are going to see plenty of upsets, buzzer beaters and more! It’s a fun and crazy tim of year, but it is also the BEST time of the Year!
For those wanting a deeper dive into the NAIA bubble teams, we encourage you to take a look at our Bubble Watch! It’s not just a good guide for who may/may not be in, but it is also a good breakdown of seeding comparisons amongst teams who may be at-large selections!
Buckle up, it’s GO TIME!!
NAIA Hoops Report top 25
Not that our Top 25 was ever more than a fun thing to look at anyway, but just wanted to reemphasize that this is NOT
