NCR's CRC has its brackets set.
With four men's divisions all on single-elimination, starting strong will be at a premium for these teams. Let's take a look at who might be the favorites, or the teams that could shake up the pecking order.
Favorites in this massive bracket include Wheeling, Indiana, Brown, and St. Bonaventure.
Indiana has been chasing this title for a while and they have an excellent shot at winning those first two rounds. For their part, Brown will face up with Kutztown (most likely) and despite their rough 15s season, KU is nicely-places to make a move here.
Kutztown has won the CRC before and while this group is different from the hard-charging, physical team that won in 2021, they do know their 7s. Third in Frostbite, winners at Monumental (where they beat Brown in the final), 3rd at Old Blues 7s, and 4th at Stag 7s, Kutztown has been good, but maybe not great. They could still get to those quarterfinals.
The dark horse in Wheeling's bracket is Southern Virginia. Another team that, on the face of it, didn't have a super-strong 15s season, SVU has talent and speed and stepping ability. What they didn't have for 15s was depth. The Knights will bring everything to this tournament.
Led by Mahanu Koi, they won the Old Blue 7s, beating St. Bonaventure (!) in the final.
Bonnies should make it to the quarters, but there they will face a tough opponent. Really, though, the opposing quartet of Marian, AIC, Dartmouth, and Michigan is perhaps the tightest group of four in the competition ... except maybe the other one.
The other one. So, first of all, Walsh, with their coach in the hospital and lots of questions surrounding how they should handle that, the players have been urged to just have fun with the game and celebrate the leadership of Stephan Herbst.
As a result, they've done quite well, including taking 2nd in the Stag 7s, losing 17-12 to St. Bonaventure. The four teams in the opposite side of this section of the bracket gives us San Diego, Kentucky, Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech. Any one of these four could advance.
Of these 32 teams, by the way, 21 play their 15s games in NCR D1; five are CRAA D1A teams; six are NCR D1AA level.
