Of the tournament field of 16, six spots will go to league champions, while two spots will go to winners of play-in games between champions from four other conferences. Those games, to be contested on Tuesday, will be Rider at No. 14 B.U and Stanford at Holy Cross.

Luckily for Harvard, not one upstart, unranked team succeeded in winning a major conference tournament this year.

The ACC, the nation's best conference from top-to-bottom, does not have an automatic bid, but its four teams with winning records are locks to make the tourney. The Big Ten runner-up, whether it be Michigan or Penn State, is also an apparent lock.

That leaves three spots.

Judging by the latest National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) poll, Harvard's top competitors for the remaining berths are No. 12 William & Mary (12-7), No. 13 James Madison (12-9), and No. 15 Ohio State (12-8). Harvard could still hold down the sixteenth ranking in the country, yet miss out on the tournament because of the automatic berth given to the unranked Stanford-Holy Cross winner.

Although the three aforementioned competitors have been ranked ahead of Harvard all year, none of them have done much to distinguish themselves from the Crimson. Each has it share of wins over marginal top-20 teams, but no wins over top-10 teams.

The NCAA Selection Committee will try to rank teams more objectively than the seemingly-arbitrary NFHCA poll. In the off-season, the committee approved the use of a ratings-percentage index as part of the selection criteria for the first time. Head-to-head contests and records versus common opponents should also be major factors under consideration.

The bubble teams might still be so close that a purely subjective decision will be necessary in the end.