The Long Beach State 49ers continued their undefeated run through the regular season of the Big West Conference last week, though they did receive a road scare against the UC Riverside Highlanders. Long Beach State needed overtime to dispatch UCR, and did so with the help of Casper Ware's 11 points in the extra period. The 49ers were dropped a seed in the latest edition of Bracketology on SB Nation, with Chris Dobbertean predicting a No. 13 seed for Long Beach State.
The 49ers were a No. 12 seed in last week's rankings. Dobbertean has Long beach State in the East region, playing an opening round game against the No. 4 seed Vanderbilt Commodores, in the same pod in Portland as the No. 5 Michigan Wolverines and No. 12 Harvard Crimson.
What the low seed suggests is that Long Beach State (16-6, 9-0) needs to win the Big West Conference tournament to gain entry into the NCAA Tournament. The 49ers have lost to the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos in the Big West final in each of the last two seasons.
However, the resume for Long Beach State is strong, with an RPI of 34 and one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country. The 49ers beat then-No. 9 Pittsburgh on the road and beat then-No. 14 Xavier in the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii. Long Beach State also lost road contests at Kansas, North Carolina, and Louisville, all ranked in the top 15 at the time.