The NCAA Tournament field has been revealed and the first big takeaway always involves who missed the field. A weak bubble largely flopped, with most teams on the cut line entering the week losing early in their conference tournaments, but a pair of bid thieves shrunk the field by two to create some much needed drama for the Selection Show.
All of the major headlines surrounded what the committee would do with Miami of Ohio, which completed a perfect regular season but lost their first game in the MAC Tournament to UMASS. The loss invited speculation they could be snubbed entirely thanks to a weak schedule (which was not entirely their fault since many power conference schools refused to play the Redhawks this year). The end result sees Miami headed to Dayton for a First Four matchup against SMU after they were pushed into that range thanks to bid thieves.
The SEC also took center stage in the bubble drama as four teams (Auburn, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas) were in the hunt for the final at-large opportunities. The committee picked SMU and Texas due in part to better wins for the Longhorns and the Mustangs set to get back key guard B.J. Edwards. That sequence of events left out Auburn and Oklahoma, who were joined by San Diego State and Indiana as the First Four out of the field.
Committee chair Keith Gill indicated that the Redhawks were not the last team in the field, revealing to CBS' Selection Show panel that Miami was picked ahead of NC State, Texas and SMU but scrubbed down based on predictive metrics. The other big takeaway was that VCU, who was also on the bubble, would not have made the field if they didn't win the A-10's automatic bid on Sunday. Let's take a deeper dive into some of the most notable NCAA Tournament snubs.
Auburn Tigers
The controversy Bruce Pearl foresaw a few weeks ago came to fruition as the RedHawks got an at-large spot ahead of Auburn. The Tigers spent the past few days on social media making their case for inclusion based largely on strong scheduling numbers and a road win at Florida. The big problem was the committee would have to take the unprecedented step of handing a 17-16 team an at-large berth to the tournament. Especially one that went just 7-15 against the top two quadrants in the NET.
No team with that many losses or that close to .500 has been given an at-large before. Auburn could have avoided its fate by taking care of business in two of three league games it lost against the bottom of its conference: at Oklahoma, at Mississippi State and vs. Ole Miss during a 1-8 skid through February. That loss to the Rebels handed the Tigers a Quad 3 defeat, and if they had won two of those games to enter Selection Sunday with a 19-14 record they are probably safely in the field instead.
Oklahoma Sooners
The Sooners deserve a ton of credit for their late-season surge into the bubble conversation, ripping off six straight wins before falling to Arkansas in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals. However, a nine-game losing streak once SEC play began in January dug Oklahoma too big a hole to climb out of. That skid played a significant part in Oklahoma's 15 losses, which is a big red flag in a bubble with teams that have better resumes with fewer defeats.
Porter Moser's group went just 10-15 against the top two quadrants in the NET, and it only has one signature win (at Vanderbilt) to highlight amongst its four Quad 1 victories. A negative WAB of -0.43 also hurt Oklahoma as it indicated to the committee that the Sooners fared worse against their schedule than the average bubble team would.
San Diego State Aztecs
You have to feel for the Aztecs, who looked like a tournament team at various points of the season but simply didn't put together enough good results to justify an at-large spot. A win over Oregon aged poorly as the Ducks fell apart this season. Meanwhile San Diego State went just 3-8 in Quad 1 with its best result coming at home against Utah State, which was negated as the Aggies beat them both on the road and in the Mountain West Tournament final on Saturday night.
A negative WAB also worked against the Aztecs, who carried a Quad 3 loss at Colorado State they couldn't overcome in the eyes of the selection committee. Their resume was only slightly better than New Mexico's, which also lost out on a potential at-large, meaning the Mountain West sent only one team to the field for the first time since 2017.
Indiana Hoosiers
The second-highest team in the NET to miss out on the field after Auburn was Indiana. The Hoosiers didn't help themselves with a poor performance down the stretch, dropping six of their final seven games to push themselves out of the field. Two of those losses came to a sub-.500 Northwestern team, which beat the Hoosiers both in Assembly Hall and the Big Ten Tournament, which essentially disqualified Indiana from serious at-large contention.
Indiana's WAB was -0.50, which rates 52nd overall entering Sunday and is the third-worst of any team featured on this list, while they went just 6-14 against teams in the top two quadrants of the NET. Going 4-10 away from Assembly Hall was not a strong selling point either since no tournament games will be played on Indiana's campus anytime soon.
Seton Hall Pirates
Unlike most of the bubble, the Pirates were able to help themselves in Champ Week with a win over Creighton to get to a Friday night semifinal against St. John's in the Big East Tournament. Seton Hall lost that game and ended its at-large chances with it, going 0-7 against the three tournament-bound Big East teams (St. John's, UCONN, and Villanova) as part of a 1-6 performance against Quad 1 opposition.
The one Quad 1 team that Seton Hall beat was fellow bubbler NC State in Maui, with a strength of schedule figure approaching 300 in non-conference play proving quite problematic for Shaheen Holloway's team. A pair of Quad 3 losses also were too much to overcome for the Pirates since they didn't have the quality results to justify inclusion in the field.
Stanford Cardinal
The most fascinating bubble resume belonged to Stanford, who had some incredible top-end wins as part of their 5-6 Quad 1 record, including home wins over Saint Louis, North Carolina and Louisville to go with a key road win at NC State. The problem came from the rest of the Cardinal's resume, which was hamstrung by a whopping 4 Quad 3 losses.
No team with that many losses outside the top two quadrants was going to earn an at-large spot, which sunk Stanford after their loss to Pitt in the ACC Tournament. WAB had Stanford nearly a full win worse than the average bubble team while a NET in the 60s was not enough to ensure inclusion in the field.