Welcome back, college sports fans, to episode 611, aka, the 61 games of March 13, 2026. Congratulations to the Steph F Austin women’s team who won the Southland conference and punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament. There are 3 other women’s finals today: AmEast, Northeast, and Patriot League. The other 58 games today are either Quarterfinals or Semifinals. Saturday and Sunday will be a full-on championship weekend moving toward Selection Sunday. Today has the earliest start for any tourney game so far when the women of Ohio and Miami OH tipoff at 10:00am (all times Eastern) as well as the latest tip when the men of New Mexico and San Diego St start at 11:59pm. That’s something like 15-16 hours of continuous basketball!
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The biggest piece of news from yesterday is that the UCONN women are the only remaining undefeated out of the 728 Division I teams as UMASS men defeated previous unbeaten Miami OH. Despite being 31-0 in the regular season, losing in the first round of the conference tourney could knock them out of the NCAA tournament completely. The GCR has them at number 25 as of right now, so we would argue they should be included, but they are 66th in GCR RPI. That puts them firmly on the bubble. There are 31 guaranteed spots and 37 at large, but many of those guaranteed spots will be for teams ranked lower than MIAO. There are two other decent MAC teams playing today in the semifinals, Kent St and Akron, who are a combined 51-13. If one of them wins out, AND the MAC gets a second team in the tournament, it may be the loser of the semi rather than a loser in the opening round. More to come.
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The GCR had a rough day predicting women’s games yesterday with a horrible 10-7 (.588) record bringing the total down to 89-29 (.754). 23 of today’s 27 games have GCR predictions, so maybe we can rebound. As a reminder, “NO PRED” just means the two predictive GCR metrics, Score and RPIF, do not agree on the winner of that game.
| CONF | Round | Game (All Times Eastern) | Tipoff | Prediction |
| AmEast | FINAL | Maine (19-12/123) / Vermont (26-7/33) | 5:00 | Vermont |
| AAC | SF | North Texas (19-13/153) / Rice (27-4/50) | 7:00 | Rice |
| AAC | SF | UTSA (16-15/205) / East Carolina (22-9/132) | 9:30 | East Carolina |
| Big West | SF | Hawaii (21-10/78) / UC Irvine (26-5/68) | 3:00 | UC Irvine |
| Big West | SF | UC Davis (23-9/72) / UC San Diego (22-8/95) | 5:30 | NO PRED |
| C-USA | SF | Liberty (18-12/117) / LA Tech (25-5/21) | 6:30 | LA Tech |
| C-USA | SF | Missouri St (20-12/136) / FIU (20-10/106) | 9:00 | NO PRED |
| Coastal | QF | William & Mary (17-13/169) / Charleston (24-5/35) | 12:00 | Charleston |
| Coastal | QF | Monmouth (20-10/99) / Stony Brook (17-14/172) | 2:30 | Monmouth |
| Coastal | QF | Hofstra (9-21/293) / Campbell (20-11/118) | 6:00 | Campbell |
| Coastal | QF | Elon (16-15/190) / Drexel (20-9/110) | 8:30 | Drexel |
| Ivy | SF | Brown (16-10/116) / Princeton (24-3/11) | 4:30 | Princeton |
| Ivy | SF | Harvard (17-10/93) / Columbia (20-7/41) | 7:30 | Columbia |
| MAC | SF | Ohio (18-12/146) / Miami OH (26-6/48) | 10:00am | Miami OH |
| MAC | SF | Toledo (16-14/176) / Ball St (26-6/42) | 12:30 | Ball St |
| MEAC | SF | Coppin St (10-22/299) / Howard (24-7/115) | 12:00 | Howard |
| MEAC | SF | Norfolk St (17-13/179) / MD Eastern (18-14/178) | 2:00 | MD Eastern |
| MVC | QF | Indiana St (10-21/311) / Murray St (28-3/36) | 1:00 | Murray St |
| MVC | QF | Bradley (20-11/148) / N Iowa (17-13/161) | 3:30 | NO PRED |
| MVC | QF | Evansville (8-24/325) / Belmont (20-11/104) | 7:00 | Belmont |
| MVC | QF | Drake (12-19/263) / Illinois St (19-12/170) | 9:30 | Illinois St |
| NEC | FINAL | Long Island (21-10/194) / Fair Dickins (29-4/89) | 12:00 | Fair Dickins |
| Patriot | FINAL | Lehigh (17-13/162) / Holy Cross (22-9/92) | 12:00 | Holy Cross |
| SWAC | SF | Southern (17-13/183) / Alabama A&M (22-9/108) | 11:00am | Alabama A&M |
| SWAC | SF | Ark Pine Bluff (15-15/214) / Alabama St (16-14/186) | 5:30 | NO PRED |
| WAC | SF | Tarleton (14-16/206) / CA Baptist (21-10/105) | 3:00 | CA Baptist |
| WAC | SF | Arlington (12-20/252) / Abilene Chr (22-9/73) | 5:30 | Abilene Chr |
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The GCR had a meh day for the men going 27-13 (.625) bringing the total to 101-52 (.660). Considering both leagues, that is 190-81 (.701) for the post-season. Of the 34 men’s games today, we have predictions for 30 of them. As a reminder, “NO PRED” just means the two predictive GCR metrics, Score and RPIF, do not agree on the winner of that game. Here are all the games:
| CONF | Round | Game (All Times Eastern) | Tipoff | Prediction |
| A10 | QF | Geo Wash (18-14/146) / St Louis (27-4/28) | 11:30am | St Louis |
| A10 | QF | St Bonaventure (17-16/187) / Dayton (21-10/60) | 2:00 | Dayton |
| A10 | QF | Duquesne (18-14/170) / VCU (24-7/33) | 5:00 | VCU |
| A10 | QF | Davidson (20-12/129) / St Josephs (21-10/118) | 7:30 | NO PRED |
| ACC | SF | Miami FL (25-7/30) / Virginia (28-4/9) | 7:00 | Virginia |
| ACC | SF | Clemson (24-9/36) / Duke (30-2/2) | 9:30 | Duke |
| American | QF | Charlotte (16-16/216) / UAB (20-11/115) | 1:00 | UAB |
| American | QF | North Texas (19-13/165) / Tulsa (25-6/58) | 3:30 | Tulsa |
| Big Ten | QF | Ohio St (21-11/43) / Michigan (29-2/1) | 12:00 | Michigan |
| Big Ten | QF | Wisconsin (23-9/32) / Illinois (24-7/12) | 2:30 | Illinois |
| Big Ten | QF | Purdue (24-8/21) / Nebraska (26-5/11) | 6:30 | NO PRED |
| Big Ten | QF | UCLA (22-10/41) / Michigan St (25-6/7) | 9:00 | Michigan St |
| Big 12 | SF | Iowa St (27-6/17) / Arizona (30-2/3) | 7:00 | Arizona |
| Big 12 | SF | Kansas (23-9/18) / Houston (27-5/8) | 9:30 | NO PRED |
| Big East | SF | Seton Hall (21-11/57) / St Johns (26-6/15) | 5:30 | St Johns |
| Big East | SF | Georgetown (16-17/143) / UCONN (28-4/4) | 8:00 | UCONN |
| Big West | SF | Northridge (20-13/113) / UC Irvine (22-10/68) | 9:00 | UC Irvine |
| Big West | SF | Fullerton (18-15/161) / Hawaii (22-8/86) | 11:30 | Hawaii |
| C-USA | SF | Missouri St (16-17/210) / LA Tech (19-13/169) | 12:30 | NO PRED |
| C-USA | SF | Kennesaw St (19-13/139) / Sam Houston (22-10/79) | 3:00 | Sam Houston |
| MAC | SF | UMASS (17-15/140) / Toledo (18-14/105) | 5:00 | Toledo |
| MAC | SF | Kent St (24-8/47) / Akron (27-5/35) | 7:30 | Akron |
| MEAC | SF | SC St (10-21/334) / Howard (21-10/186) | 6:00 | Howard |
| MEAC | SF | Delaware St (8-22/351) / NC Central (13-17/298) | 8:00 | NC Central |
| Mtn West | SF | Nevada (22-11/53) / Utah St (26-6/20) | 9:30 | Utah St |
| Mtn West | SF | New Mexico (23-9/52) / San Diego St (21-10/45) | 11:59 | San Diego St |
| SEC | QF | Kentucky (21-12/39) / Florida (25-6/6) | 1:00 | Florida |
| SEC | QF | Tennessee (22-10/34) / Vanderbilt (24-7/19) | 3:30 | Vanderbilt |
| SEC | QF | Mississippi (14-19/212) / Alabama (23-8/13) | 7:00 | Alabama |
| SEC | QF | Oklahoma (19-14/103) / Arkansas (23-8/16) | 9:30 | Arkansas |
| SWAC | SF | Prairie View (16-17/280) / Alabama A&M (18-14/222) | 2:00 | Alabama A&M |
| SWAC | SF | Southern (16-16/253) / Florida A&M (15-15/257) | 8:30 | Southern |
| WAC | SF | Arlington (18-13/125) / Utah Valley (24-7/49) | 9:00 | Utah Valley |
| WAC | SF | Utah Tech (19-14/135) / CA Baptist (23-8/55) | 11:30 | CA Baptist |
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That’s it for today. Tune in Saturday and Sunday for a bunch of high-energy semi-finals and finals. Thank you for reading and sharing with others. See you tomorrow, JoJo and G.
