4 mid-majors who can make the women's NCAA Tournament even without an autobid

When talking about the bubble picture, most bracketologists assume that the conference tournament winner will be the regular-season conference champion. And for many conferences, this assumption doesn't matter, because those conferences aren't going to land multiple bids even if the regular-season champion is upset.

But sometimes, a mid-major is so good that it has to make the tournament as an at-large, even if it doesn't win its conference tournament. Here are the teams from outside the top five women's basketball conferences that should make the NCAA Tournament even if they lose their conference title game. (Note: This is assuming they actually make it to the title game and then lose. An earlier conference tournament loss might change the math too much against them.)

Princeton

Last year, we had a three-bid Ivy League with Columbia, Harvard and Princeton all making the Big Dance. I wouldn't expect a repeat this year, since Harvard is only 15-9 on the season and Columbia probably lands on the wrong side of the bubble if it doesn't win the conference tournament. But Princeton? The Tigers are 21-3 and should be in no matter what.

Having a pair of losses to Columbia on its resume is rough, but consider this: The Tigers are 21-1 against every other team they've faced, with the only other defeat coming to a Maryland team that the selection committee recently listed as a top-16 overall seed.

Princeton has eight wins against teams with a top-100 Her Hoop Stats rating, including victories over VIllanova and Rhode Island. If we include the Big East, Princeton sports a record of 6-1 against power conference opponents. This is a tournament resume, easily. Only two mid-majors are higher in the NET, and Princeton has a better Quad 1 record than both.

Even a presumed third loss to Columbia in the Ivy League tournament shouldn't be enough to keep Princeton out, though it would be odd for three-quarters of a team's defeats to come against the same team.

Rhode Island

At 24-4, Rhode Island should be close to a lock at this point, though a 26-point blowout loss against Richmond on Wednesday complicates things. It also doesn't help that two of the Rams' losses were to Rutgers and La Salle — teams that are, for lack of a better term, bad.

Rhode Island already had a win over Richmond under its belt, though, which softens the blow of that defeat. And the best thing in the team's favor is a win over NC State back in November. That wasn't even a neutral-site win — it was a straight-up road win over an ACC team that is going to make the NCAA Tournament.

Related to this is the question of whether the Atlantic 10 could get two bids if Rhode Island does go on to win the conference tournament. Would Richmond be able to grab a spot as well, considering the Spiders are currently in ESPN's First Four Out? First, I think it'd require few other bid steals across the landscape, which is tough to expect but not impossible. Second, it probably requires all the Big 12 bubble teams to struggle in the Big 12 Tournament, and that might be a lot to expect. Then again, Richmond is No. 37 in the NET, which feels like it should matter. I'm just not sure it will. If this article were about mid-majors that should be in, Richmond would have earned a spot.

North Dakota State

North Dakota State's case is interesting. ESPN has the Bison as a 10-seed right now, while their closest Summit League competition, South Dakota State, is on the wrong side of the bubble — but is still at least near the bubble, showcasing that the Summit is a pretty good conference. If that's the case, you'd have to think the Bison get in, right? Especially when the Summit League has had multiple bids twice since 2019.

The 25-3 Bison just saw their chances take a slight hit on Wednesday with a 15-point home loss to the Jackrabbits, but that was also just their first conference loss of the season. The team's other losses were to Gonzaga and Nebraska.

The resume admittedly isn't great, but the fact that the team has never been tripped up by a "bad" team helps, as does the fact that NDSU balanced out its home loss to South Dakota State with a road win over the Jackrabbits. If the Bison finish with one more loss in the conference tournament to SDSU, they have to still be in, right?

Fairfield

The case for Fairfield as an at-large feels harder to make, but in a fair world, the Stags would be in. The team is 49th in the NET, below just five other mid-major teams, and sports a 24-4 overall record.

Notably, two of those four losses came to top 25 teams, and another to a very underrated Quinnipiac squad. The only really bad loss was a road defeat against Howard back in December — one that, honestly, I don't have any excuses for. The Bison were just better that night.

Led by one of the best mid-major duos — or, heck, one of the best overall duos — in the nation in Kaety L'Amoreaux and Meghan Andersen, the Stags have picked up some key wins this season, beating both Richmond and Villanova by double digits. That 20-point win over the Spiders feels especially illustrative of how good this Fairfield team can be. Will it be enough? That remains to be seen, but the thoroughness of how the Stags have dominated their conference — minus the one Quinnipiac game — is impressive, with an average margin of victory in MAAC play of 26.1 points.