We don’t have to wait much longer, NCAA Division II basketball fans.

NCAA Tournament time is officially here, and as D-III’s versions of the Big Dance tips off this week, D-II joins in the fun next week as conference tournaments are wrapping up over the next several days and bids to the 64-team bracket are officially set in stone.

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For those unaware, D-II does its tournaments a little differently than its D-I and D-III counterparts with winners of eight geographically-based Regionals qualifying for the Elite Eight, which will be held this year from March 25-29 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana.

That makes for a tournament in which essentially every game in the bracket is a dogfight with little margin for error, and in line with that expected chaos, FloCollege’s picks to make it to the Elite Eight aren’t all No. 1 teams.

Throw in some strong sleepers with some serious firepower mixing in with the nation’s top teams, and we should have a loaded next few weeks of D-II hoops on our hands.

With Selection Sunday in D-II basketball upon us, here’s a look at FloCollege predicts to take charge in all eight men’s regions:

Atlantic Region: West Liberty

Just a thought, but it probably wouldn’t be wise of us to pick against a team that just scored 162 points in a 40-minute game last week, like the Hilltoppers did against Salem last Wednesday (where they also earned a spot in FloCollege’s final edition of Video Game Numbers this season). 

Consistently one of the most high-octane offenses in D-II basketball, West Liberty wrapped up the Mountain East Conference regular-season title for the eighth-straight season and closed out play entering this week’s MEC Tournament on a 13-game winning streak, scoring at least 100 points in nine of those victories.

 Six Hilltoppers average double-digit points, with sophomore guard Kyler D’Augustino leading the way at 17.2 points per night, and only two teams nationwide make more 3-pointers per game on average than West Liberty’s 11.9 — and only juggernaut Nova Southeastern averages more assists than the Hilltoppers 22.5 per game.

Central Region: Concordia-St. Paul

It’s a bit of a controversial call to go against current projected No. 1 seed Washburn, which won 22 straight games to start the year, and this pick to go against the Ichabods may blow up in our faces. But unless you’re one of its Central Region rivals, how can you not love the story to date of Concordia-St. Paul? 

Picked to finish eighth in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference in the preseason, the Golden Bears then proceeded to win the NSIC regular-season crown for the first time in school history after never even finishing above third place in the league standings before. An opening-round defeat in the NSIC Tournament to Minot State last weekend did hurt CSP’s stock a bit, but the Beavers (themselves a sleeper team to win the Central despite a midseason slump, should they earn a bid) also were a lethal 17-0 team at one point, so it was by no means a disastrous loss. 

Plus, Bears guard Antwan Kimmons (25.0 points per game) is the type of impact player that can take a team on a deep NCAA Tournament run.

East Region: Daemen

Here’s a complete list of undefeated men’s basketball teams remaining across all three NCAA divisions: Daemen. 

That’s it.

The nation’s No. 1-ranked squad in this week’s NABC poll, the Wildcats have a D-I win (albeit in an exhibition) over Buffalo, two wins in nonconference play over teams then-ranked in the top 11 in either of the two major D-II national polls — Charleston (West Virginia) and California (Pennsylvania) — and the second-most lopsided scoring margin in the country at 22.6 points per game as of Tuesday, much of which was built during a dominant East Coast Conference slate in which they romped to the regular-season title and never won a league game by fewer than eight points. 

Daemen has dangerous defense and depth, leading the nation in field goal percentage defense (37.1%) and ranking second in bench points per game (38.6), and to anyone from the East Region trying to knock off the Wildcats in the postseason, good luck.

Midwest Region: Michigan Tech

A wide-open (and very, very good) region in which current top-ranked team Missouri S&T, Lake Superior State and Ferris State are all among the favorites that are in the running to make it to Evansville, we’re rolling with the blazing-hot Huskies one week out from the tourney. 

Winners of 10 of its last 11 games to close out the regular season (a run which led to its first outright Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title in 22 years), Tech, tied to the now-infamous “Nobody U” quote by Green Bay coach and media personality Doug Gottlieb prior to the Phoenix’s exhibition loss to the Huskies in mid-December, is clearly no pushover as they knocked off Ferris State twice and Lake Superior State once in GLIAC play. 

What’s also helping Tech’s case is the fact that it’s got one of the most electric players in D-II in Marcus Tomashek, a deadeye shooter that can drop 40-plus points on anyone — up to and including the teams the Huskies would see at the Elite Eight, should they make it there.

Might be time you learn their name 🗣️

Michigan Tech defeated Phoenix 72-70 after Green Bay Head Coach Doug Gottlieb called the Huskies “Nobody U” before the game. #GLIAChoops | @mtumbb pic.twitter.com/7zdi9vnFhY

— FloCollege | Basketball (@FloCollegeHoops) December 18, 2024

South Region: Nova Southeastern

Sure, Daemen holds an unbeaten record going into conference tournament week, but few would get mad at you for picking the well-established Sharks over them to win it all this season. 

NSU is pushing to make it to the national championship game for the third straight season and holds a 78-game home winning streak dating back to February 2020, only needing to win two more games at Rick Case Arena to break the all-time D-II record. 

A stacked lineup with one of the best coaches in D-II in Jim Crutchfield looks well on pace toward reaching that mark: MJ Iraldi (24.4 points per game, 55.8% field goal percentage, 41.1% 3-point percentage) is a national player of the year frontrunner, but the return of point guard Dallas Graziani — who came back to NSU after a season at D-I Samford — and his national-best 9.5 assists per game has arguably been the biggest key to another stellar Sharks season.

South Central Region: Colorado Mines

The projected top-seeded Orediggers won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular-season crown by four games, and while current South Central No. 3 Lubbock Christian does hold a head-to-head win over Mines in its season-opener, this is a more seasoned Orediggers team nowadays. A squad that often goes 11-deep off of the bench, Mines had torrid midseason runs of 15 wins from 16 and 23 from 25 as RMAC all-time wins leader Pyror Orser looks to lead the Orediggers to his third Elite Eight at the helm. 

With the depth that it has at its disposal, Mines doesn’t have a star, per se — Majok Deng is the closest to it, with the guard leading the Orediggers at 14.9 points per game — but it has players that fill roles and play them to near-perfection, like sixth-man and sophomore guard Markus Pastorcic-Straun and sharpshooter Reagan Koch, who misses out on qualifying among the national leaders in 3-point percentage but would lead the country in that category if he did (38 for 77 from 3, 49.4%).

Southeast Region: Lenoir-Rhyne

Brent Owen goes into programs and gets stuff done. The newly-named South Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year — hired on in the offseason after leading Eastern New Mexico from Lone Star Conference obscurity to the NCAA Tournament — has needed less than a season to lead the Bears to their most wins at the end of the regular season (23) since 1962-63, and though it is seeded No. 4 in the Southeast by the NCAA as of this week, a battle-tested schedule that’s featured big SAC wins over Lincoln Memorial and Coker has Lenoir-Rhyne right in the thick of the conversation when it comes to being Elite Eight contenders. 

Junior Ziare Wells, who didn’t start consistently on the Bears until late January, has been thriving with the increased minutes and is Lenoir-Rhyne’s leading scorer at 17.2 points per game, while big man and ENMU transfer Conrad Luczynski is a problem down low at 7-foot-2 that can completely transform games on both ends on the interior.

Jobs not finished ❌#GOBEARS | #BetweenTheBricks pic.twitter.com/P0csKaSPi5

— Lenoir-Rhyne Men’s 🏀 (@LRU_Basketball) March 4, 2025

West Region: Point Loma

Just about as consistent as it gets out West, the Sea Lions haven’t won fewer than 20 games in a season (minus the pandemic-affected 2020-21 campaign) since 2016-17 and are once more the favorites to go to the Elite Eight out of their region, but they have not reached that point since making the national championship game in 2019. 

This season could be the one that changes that. Point Loma has tied its program record for most regular-season wins (25), won the PacWest Conference title again this year and has a reliable crop of four starters who have started all 30 games and all average double figures in points per game. 

One member of that quartet, guard Luke Haupt, has roared back from missing the entirety of last season due to injury to be the Sea Lions’ second-leading scorer (13.7 points per game) and top rebounder (5.9 rebounds per game) entering their PacWest Tournament opener this week, though Zackry Paulsen (16.3 points per game) does tend to be Point Loma’s No. 1 option on a nightly basis. 

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