Top trends, stats to know about upcoming NCAA Tournament

There are always some numbers and trends that just standout entering a NCAA Tournament.

Check out the historical trends and stats to know heading into the upcoming NCAA Tournament this week in Palo Alto, California.


Lewis back in NCAA Tournament — For the second consecutive year, Lewis received an at-large bid to make the NCAA Tournament. This is the third time in the history of the NCAA Tournament that a non-West Coast team was selected for an at-large bid. The Flyers also are the fifth team during the last 10 NCAA Tournaments to earn the No. 1 seed as an at-large bid. In those four previous times, only UC Irvine in 2009 won the NCAA championship.

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UC Irvine lucky No. 2 — It might be a good sign for the UC Irvine that it enters the NCAA Tournament as the No. 2 seed. Two of the Anteaters’ three national championships occurred when they were the No. 2 seed. In addition, UC Irvine has the nation’s best all-time NCAA Tournament winning percentage at .889 and is undefeated as a No. 2 seed.

Loyola going for the repeat — Loyola is attempting to become the fourth program to repeat as national champions in NCAA Tournament history and the first non-West Coast school to achieve the feat. The Ramblers are the fifth defending national champions to make the NCAA Tournament field in the rally scoring era. Defending national champions are 3-3 in NCAA Tournament matches during the rally scoring era.

Hawai’i postseason road struggles — Hawai’i is 9-26 all-time in postseason matches played on the road or at a neutral site, including a four-game loss to Pepperdine in the MPSF Tournament semifinals last week. The Rainbow Warriors during the regular season went 9-3 away from the Stan Sheriff Center for one of their best single-season road records in recent history. It is also 3-3 all-time in road and neutral site NCAA Tournament matches with two victories during the program’s vacated NCAA championship in 2002.

Penn State taking on the West Coast — Penn State is a combined 4-16 against MPSF teams in NCAA Tournament matches during the last 20 years. One of those victories, though, was against Hawai’i in the 1995 NCAA Tournament semifinals — Mark Pavlik’s first NCAA Tournament match as the Nittany Lions’ head coach.

NCAA Tournament attendance — When Stanford last played host to the NCAA Tournament in 2010 it almost set at the time the tournament rally scoring era record with 10,395 total attendance as the Cardinal won the national title on its home court. However, this is the first NCAA Tournament field in six years featuring no school located within 300 miles of the NCAA Tournament site. The 2009 NCAA Tournament at BYU had a total attendance of 5,579.