MPSF Tournament Projections
With at-large bids hard to come by, everyone will be fighting for the guaranteed spot in the NCAA Tournament.
The MPSF Tournament is unique. No other conference has the same format or the same seeding protocols as the MPSF. And there might be a good reason for that. The 2025 Tournament is full of offensive juggernauts that could pull a late-round upset. This one is going to be fun to watch (if you have B1G+).
The Bracket
There is a reason the MPSF doesn’t have a bracket graphic on their website: it’s complicated. Before we get to deep in the weeds, let’s start with the easy part. The MPSF Tournament is hosted by Pepperdine this year.
Top seeds get progressively more byes than lower seeds. This is a huge benefit to the top two seeds as they automatically get to the semifinals in a field of nine teams. Here is the round by-round breakdown.
The first round will have #8 and #9 battle. The winner moves on to the second round to face the #5 seed. The other “second-round” matchup is #6 and #7. Then come the quarterfinals, where seed #3 and #4 come into the picture. And lastly, the top seeds make it all the way to the semifinals before having to be tested.
If that wasn’t complicated enough, the seeding for the MPSF this year is exceptionally complicated. It rivals (and probably surpasses) the complexity of the national tournament selection committee.
Here is the official protocol for the MPSF seeding.
Since not all teams play each other (which is ridiculous if you ask me), the conference was forced to figure out a way to seed teams. Is it complicated? Yes. Does it solve the problem? I guess. Does it cause even more problems? I think so. Do I think this will cause the MPSF to break apart one day? Yes, yes I do.
Round-by-Round Projections
I used the VBelo model and simulated the MPSF tournament 50,000 times. Below are the results for how often each team progressed through the tournament.
Remember how much of an advantage those top two seeds get? Well, it definitely impacted the odds. The top two seeds combined have almost an 80% chance of getting that ticket to Columbus in May. The fact that they only have to win two matches, gives them a huge boost.
Because of this very uneven structure, the bottom of the bracket has a near zero chance of winning. The bottom three seeds are in a tough position and it is probably no accident that they are all Division II programs. While the seeds are justifiable, it sure feels icky that D-II only make up the bottom of the bracket.
Seed 3-6 are the really interesting teams. They have all had success at certain points in the season and have shown that they can defeat the top teams. The real question will be if they can do it when it matters most.
Will UCLA secure a chance for a three-peat? Will USC overpower the competition? Can anyone else make the selection committee’s job even harder?