2026 Season · Final

NCAA D1 Bracketology

Cradl's projected NCAA tournament field, built from RPI, Elo power ratings and conference tournament results, and updated after every result.

Projected bracket

Projection

Win probability ● Favorite ● Coin-flip ● Underdog

Conference champions

These lists follow the bracket mode you're viewing.

Committee score = RPI + adjustment

Sched: +/- bonus when schedule is stronger/weaker than the field median

Big Wins: +0.005 / +0.003 / +0.0015 / +0.0008 per win vs RPI top-5 / top-10 / top-15 / top-20

Bad Losses: -0.003 per loss to a team ranked 21+ (capped at 6)

Last 4 At-Large In

#12 Maryland Terrapins

RPI 0.6002 · Committee 0.6128 (+0.0126)

7-6 | SOS 0.611

Sched +0.0080 · Big Wins +0.0046

#9 Johns Hopkins University Blue Jays

RPI 0.6262 · Committee 0.6440 (+0.0178)

10-6 | SOS 0.618

Sched +0.0087 · Big Wins +0.0121 · Bad Losses -0.0030

#8 Cornell Big Red

RPI 0.6325 · Committee 0.6521 (+0.0196)

11-5 | SOS 0.609

Sched +0.0078 · Big Wins +0.0118

#7 Virginia Cavaliers

RPI 0.6268 · Committee 0.6537 (+0.0270)

10-7 | SOS 0.620

Sched +0.0090 · Big Wins +0.0180

First 4 Out

Yale Bulldogs

RPI 0.5988 · Committee 0.6105 (+0.0118)

9-6 | SOS 0.603

Sched +0.0073 · Big Wins +0.0045

Harvard Crimson

RPI 0.5931 · Committee 0.6047 (+0.0116)

9-5 | SOS 0.589

Sched +0.0058 · Big Wins +0.0058

Pennsylvania Quakers

RPI 0.5817 · Committee 0.5902 (+0.0086)

7-6 | SOS 0.601

Sched +0.0071 · Big Wins +0.0015

Ohio State Buckeyes

RPI 0.5731 · Committee 0.5791 (+0.0061)

10-4 | SOS 0.576

Sched +0.0046 · Big Wins +0.0045 · Bad Losses -0.0030

How this bracket works

The NCAA D1 men's lacrosse tournament has 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.

Three projection modes

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.

Bubble watch

The Last 4 At-Large In and First 4 Out panels reflect the bracket mode you're viewing, so 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 come from Cradl's Elo power ratings, which account for margin of victory, strength of schedule and home-field advantage across the season.

Conference champion picker: choose a different winner for any conference tournament in the sidebar, and the bracket recalculates seeding and at-large selections. RPI stays at the current snapshot; it does not add the wins and losses those tournament games would produce.