The last of the small and mid-major conference automatic bids were punched on Sunday afternoon, just in time to analyze them before the full bracket is released.
Let’s take a quick look at the winners of the Ivy League and Atlantic 10 Conference.
Ivy
Automatic Bid: Yale
Projected Seed: 12 or 13
Cinderella Probability: Decent
Yale is back in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season, looking to build on the success that it found in 2024 when it knocked off Auburn in the first round. Also back is John Poulakidas, who with 28 points in the game was instrumental in the Bulldogs’ upset of the Tigers last season. Poulakidas is representative of this Yale team as a whole – smart, unassuming, but deadly from behind the arc if you leave him open. He averages 19 PPG for the Bulldogs this season.
The Bulldogs are the country’s No. 17 team in terms of three point shooting percentage, but they don’t shoot as many three pointers as you might expect given their adeptness at it. Instead, James Jones has established a disciplined, balanced approach that relies on excellent ball sharing and crashing the boards, two other things that this Bulldogs team does quite well.
The Ivy League schools are a known commodity, but year in and year out teams from that collective find a way to take it to bigger, stronger brands in college basketball. This year’s Yale team should be no different, and will likely give at least one team a ton of fits in the Big Dance.
Atlantic 10
Automatic Bid: VCU
Projected Seed: 10 or 11
Cinderella Probability: Decent
The A-10 is only going to be a single bid league this season, but that doesn’t discount the talent that exists on this VCU squad. The Rams are a top 30 team in KenPom’s efficiency margin rating, top 50 in offensive efficiency and top 25 in defensive efficiency. In short, a complete squad that does a lot of good with their limited possessions, considering a relatively slow pace of play.
The Rams have excellent guard play, with four of them averaging double-digit points per game and minutes. They’re a particularly great shooting team, but as mentioned previously, they do a great job maximizing what they get out of offensive possessions and make it very difficult to score on them.
Ryan Odom’s team was the class of the Atlantic 10 all season and has the talent to make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
