Nine of 16 Men's DII college Round of 16 teams are to be decided this weekend, as six play-in matches are on the docket, as well as one final conference league game, one more conference final, and one more conference playoff weekend.

Here's how we see it going (and you can refer to our latest rankings here):

Rugby Northeast: Roger Williams got through a really tough semifinal to face UMass-Lowell which defeated Bentley. These two teams met almost two months ago and RWU won 46-12. But this is an imporving UMass-Lowell team, and one that could produce an upset. RWU's defense is solid, though, and Roger Williams should emerge conference winners. The Rugby Northeast champion will face MARC champion Rowan next week in the Round of 16.

Play-in: Coast Guard v IUP. This should be a tough game for Coast Guard as they've been right in the middle of a tough league season so far. IUP has kind of known for some time they would be here, and will be the host team. So while IUP is ranked lower than Coast Guard, 36th versus 21st, IUP may well be the favored team here.

The winner of that game will play Capital champion Towson.

Upstate NY: Oswego plays Niagara and Geneseo plays Cortland in the semis with the final on Sunday. It's hard to imagine that #15 Cortland will win this. Cortland only gave up 83 points in eight league games this season; their defense is very strong.

The winner of the Upstate Conference will take on the NECRC winner which will be ...

NECRC: Vermont v Rhode Island. Rhode Island hosts this game, and while Rhode Island was thumped 32-5 against Vermont in Burlington on October 3, URI has spent the entire rest of the fall making sure that doesn't happen again. It's going to be tough, but we think Rhode Island will win this.

Play-in: Springfield v Salve Regina. This will be tough, but Salve looks to be the stronger team, with a defense that is allowing seven points a game. 

(Salve put together a nice little season highlight video. Here it is: https://youtu.be/t356sdX5T68)

Play-in: Grand Valley State v Northern Iowa. Despite the fact that GVSU is a conference champion, we think that WIIL #3 UNI has a very solid shot at winning this game. Northern Iowa lost to the WIIL #2 by the slimmest of margins earlier in the season, and gave conference winners UW-Whitewater some serious things to think about. GVSU hasn't seen the toughness of opposition on a regular basis that UNI has.

The winner gets to play top-seeded Minnesota-Duluth, so that's a good-news, bad-news outcome.

Play-in: Colorado School of Mines v Winona State

Winona just barely got here, but that doesn't mean they can't beat Mines. We think, however, that Mines has done more than win; they've developed a strong team ethos and a forward pack led by Ben Bymaster, Andrew Rixon, and Konstantin Rehbein that could well see them through.

Play-in: Lindenwood-Belleville v UMS&T

This is going to be a wonderful matchup, not least of which because the teams are relatively close geographically. S&T is winning in part because they have an older, experiences team 

The winner of this game plays the winner of the Mines v Winona play-in

Play-in: Coastal Carolina v Salisbury

Look at the rankings and you see we've got Salisbury at #4 and Coastal at #20. That's kind of how we see it. Salisbury's fitness, power in the forwards, and kicking game will probably do the job.

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