Introducing the College Basketball National Cup - 2025

[u/Jomosensual]

Hello everyone. It's once again the summer. Portal news has slowed down, coaching carousel is down, and now we just wait. Again. We're still a long way from November and the first tip. Thankfully though, there is one thing still left to do before we move along into the prep for last season. The college basketball national cup, now with a name that actually fits the tournament as well! Last season we saw the Marquette Golden Eagles, who struggled in qualifying but then put together a huge run in the cup itself, defeat the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the final.

Some explanation on the set up here:

Conferences have been reorganized and realigned from 31 to 12 and grouped together by state/region. All teams from the same state will be in the same conference. In the future I may look to rebalance some conferences, but it will be entire states of teams who would have to move around vs individuals. Bids are determined based on size of the conference vs the rest of the league for now.

The qualification formats vary league to league, but the world cup itself will have 64 teams in it, with a group and knockout stage. Matchups will be decided via random draw, also like the IRL world cup. I'm using the NET to act as the FIFA World Rankings, it'll assist with the draws mostly. If there's a better ranking to to use for this game I'll consider for future seasons.

Here's a list of the conferences, plus a map for those more visually inclined. The only new changes here are the additions of the West Georgia Wolves to the Sunshine Conference and Mercyhurst to the Mid Atlantic. Next season will see the debut of the New Haven Chargers to the Liberty conference and the exit of St Francis:

Conference	States	Number of Teams/Bids
Golden	California/Hawaii	26 teams/4 bids
Lone Star	Texas	26/4
Liberty	New York/New Jersey	30/5
New England	Mass, Conn, Maine, NH, Vermont, Rhode Island	23/4
Pacific Mountains	Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho	17/3
Four Corners	Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona	18/3
Heartland	North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri	26/4
Great Lakes	Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan	48/8
Mid Atlantic	West Virginia, Virginia, Penn, Maryland, DC, Delaware	46/8
Carolina United	North Carolina, South Carolina	31/5
Sunshine	Florida, Alabama, Georgia	30/5
Delta	Tennessee, Louisiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi	43/7

Finally, there will be 4 interconference qualifying games as well, which will allow for some of the conferences to gain an additional spot. This could be considered our Last 4 In. These were chose by taking conference who just about had enough teams for another bid playing each other to decide which one takes the extra spot. The matchups are:

Lone Star 5th place(TCU) vs. Heartland 5th place(Drake)
New England 5th place(Northeastern) vs. Golden 5th place(San Diego State)
Pacific Mountains 4th place(Washington State) vs. Four Corners 4th place(Arizona State)
Delta 8th place(Mississippi State) vs. Great Lakes 9th place(Michigan State)

And finally of course, here's a tracker of all the teams who have qualified so far and their method of qualifications. Keep your eyes out for the first draw of the season coming in the next few days

Qualified Teams(64/64)	Method of Qualification
Stanford	Golden Conference Group A Winner
Santa Clara	Golden Conference Group B Winner
UCLA	Golden Conference Group C Winner
Saint Mary's	Golden Conference Group D Winner
Auburn	Sunshine Round 1 Group A Winner
Florida	Sunshine Round 1 Group B Winner
Alabama	Sunshine Round 1 Group C Winner
Georgia	Sunshine Round 2 Group A Winner
UCF	Sunshine Round 2 Group B Winner
Rutgers	Liberty Group A Winner
St. Bonaventure	Liberty Group B Winner
St. John's	Liberty Group C Winner
Cornell	Liberty Knockout Bracket A Winner
Syracuse	Liberty Knockout Bracket B Winner
Cincinnati	Great Lakes R2 Group A Winner
Michigan	Great Lakes R2 Group B Winner
Marquette	Great Lakes R2 Group C Winner
Ohio State	Great Lakes R2 Group D Winner
Northwestern	Great Lakes R2 Group E Winner
Illinois	Great Lakes R2 Group F Winner
Wisconsin	Great Lakes Last Chance Round Robin Winner
Purdue	Great Lakes Last Chance Round Robin 2nd Place
Yale	New England Group A Winner
Bryant	New England Group A 2nd Place
Providence	New England Group B Winner
UConn	New England Group B 2nd Place
Houston	Lonestar Group A Winner
Texas A&M	Lonestar Group B Winner
Texas Tech	Lonestar Group C Winner
Baylor	Lonestar Group D Winner
Nebraska	Heartland Group A Winner
Creighton	Heartland Group B Winner
Missouri	Heartland Group C Winner
Iowa State	Heartland Group D Winner
West Virginia	Mid Atlantic Group A Top Four
Virginia	Mid Atlantic Group A Top Four
Saint Joseph's	Mid Atlantic Group A Top Four
James Madison	Mid Atlantic Group A Top Four
Pittsburgh	Mid Atlantic Group B Top Four
Penn State	Mid Atlantic Group B Top Four
VCU	Mid Atlantic Group B Top Four
Maryland	Mid Atlantic Group B Top Four
Boise State	Pacific Mountains Round 2 Winner
Gonzaga	Pacific Mountains Round 2 Top 3
Oregon	Pacific Mountains Round 2 Top 3
BYU	Four Corners Round 2 Winner
Arizona	Four Corners Round 2 Top 3
New Mexico	Four Corners Round 2 Top 3
Kentucky	Delta Group A Winner
Tennessee	Delta Group B Winner
Arkansas State	Delta Group C Winner
Ole Miss	Delta Group D Winner
Memphis	Delta Group E Winner
Middle Tennessee	Delta Round 3 Winner
Belmont	Delta Round 3 2nd Place
Duke	Carolina United Top 5
South Carolina	Carolina United Top 5
Clemson	Carolina United Top 5
Wofford	Carolina United Top 5
North Carolina	Carolina United Top 5
TCU	Lonestar/Heartland Playoff
San Diego State	New England/Golden Playoff
Washington State	Pacific Mountains/ Four Corners Playoff
Michigan State	Delta/Great Lakes Playoff

[u/CallMeVe]

Finally, we'll play our arch rivals, Youngstown St

[u/HopRockets]

How are matchups decided? Some kind of simulation?

[u/Jomosensual → u/HopRockets]

Yep! I run the simulations on NCAASim.Com

For how the matchups come together I do weighted draws like they do in the world cup

[u/huskyferretguy1]

So UConn advancing is confirmed?

[u/Jomosensual → u/huskyferretguy1]

I'm not gonna promise it but it seems likely

[u/ChicSheikh → u/huskyferretguy1]

Unless the simulation has them playing in Maui.

[u/[deleted]]

Cool idea. I would scrap the last four in.

[u/Jomosensual → u/[deleted]]

So the last four in serves a couple purposes. The way I calculated how many bids each conference should get would sometimes come out right in the middle. I took number of teams in the conference and divided that by the number of teams in D1, then multiplied it by 64(size of field) to get my number of bids. After rounding up and down a few conferences right on the edge there's some, such as the Lone Star and Heartland, that came out equal or very close to each other. There's a lot of different ways to slice that up but I opted for the last 4 in to mimic FIFA's inter conference playoffs, which add the last couple of teams in the field for the World Cup. Adds a little extra do or die to the game and can help make up for a bad draw or some funky stuff happening in a group.