View a photo gallery from the match.
A semi-finals loss in the Mid-American Conference Tournament left Ball State's chances of making the NCAA Tournament looking bleak and discouraging.
In only seven days since that defeat, those fortunes may have changed for the better.
If Ball State manages to beat 80th-ranked St. Louis in the final match of the regular season today at 7 p.m., the 36th-ranked Cardinals will put themselves in a position for heavy consideration to receive an at-large bid to the national tournament.
Several other teams in the MAC should join Ball State in the tournament field this year, according to Rich Kern, webmaster of richkern.com
"I do have four teams out of the MAC into the tournament this year," Kern said in a phone interview. "I have Ball State, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois and Central Michigan. If I was selecting based on the way the selection committee was selecting last year, they would be in."
Kern later clarified in an email that he created his projections without knowing the remaining automatic qualifiers that will make the tournament.
The NCAA selection committee is comprised of 10 members of different schools and conferences across the nation with the goal of selecting the best teams to place in the tournament along with automatic qualifiers.
Kern said Ball State's hopes of getting into the NCAA Tournament hinges on the selection committee basing its at-large bids on the RPI rankings, which Ball State ranks 36th in, rather than the Pablo rankings, which places the Cardinals much lower.
Traditionally, the selection committee has heavily based its decisions for at-large bids on the RPI rankings. That could change this year, according to Kern.
"I know that there's been pressure been put on some members of the selection committee to go more by Pablo, so if that's the case, there would certainly be an argument that Ball State and Western Michigan would not be selected," Kern said.
No matter which way the selection committee leans with ranking systems and mid-major programs, a win over St. Louis tonight will only strengthen Ball State's 2011 resume.
Still, a sense of uncertainty will remain until the final 64 tournament teams are announced at 6:00 on Sunday, which will be broadcasted live on ESPU.
"The selection committee has been so unpredictable," Kern said. "Nobody really knows."
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