Cradl's projected NCAA tournament field, updated continuously from RPI, Elo power ratings, and conference tournament outcomes.
The NCAA D1 men's lacrosse tournament features 18 teams: 10 automatic qualifiers (conference tournament champions) and 8 at-large selections chosen by the committee based on RPI, strength of schedule, and record against ranked opponents.
The bottom four seeds (15-18) play in the Opening Round, with winners advancing to face the 1 and 2 seeds. The top 8 seeds host First Round games. From there, the bracket is fixed through Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and the Championship.
Pure RPI — naive seeding by raw RPI with standard 1v16 / 8v9 / 5v12 / 4v13 pairings. No bracket-construction adjustments.
Standard Bracket — RPI seeding, then the NCAA committee's bracket-construction rules: host funneling at quarterfinal sites, conference-conflict avoidance in the first round, the 400-mile travel preference, and prior-year rematch avoidance.
Committee Projection — selection and seeding driven by a composite committee score: RPI + bounded adjustment. The adjustment rewards strength of schedule and signature wins, penalizes losses to teams ranked outside the top 20, and shuffles 3–5 ranks around the bubble while leaving the top seeds stable. Pairings then apply the same Standard Bracket rules.
The Last 4 At-Large In and First 4 Out panels reflect the bracket mode you're viewing — they swap when you change modes. Each entry shows its RPI, committee score, and the three components of the committee adjustment (SOS bonus, signature wins, bad losses).
Win probabilities are calculated using Cradl's Elo power ratings, which account for margin of victory, strength of schedule, and home-field advantage throughout the season.
Conference Champion Picker: Use the sidebar dropdowns to explore "what if" scenarios by selecting different conference tournament winners. The bracket recalculates seeding and at-large selections based on your picks. Note that RPI values reflect the current season snapshot and do not simulate the additional wins/losses that would result from conference tournament outcomes.