With just weeks to go until the men's NCAA Tournament field is set, the most heated debate around the bubble centers around a team that technically isn't on it. The lone undefeated team left on the men's side is Miami (Ohio), which beat Eastern Michigan on Tuesday to improve to 28-0 on the season. While most would assume that going undefeated into late February should have you comfortably in the NCAA Tournament, this year's Redhawks appear to still have little margin for error.
Why men's college basketball's lone unbeaten remains on the bubble
The big issue that bracketology experts have is their strength of schedule. Which is, admittedly, not great: 288th overall and 360th in the non-conference, according to KenPom. Miami has not played a single Quad 1 game this season — usually the defining metric for tournament evaluation — thanks in large part to not playing any power conference teams before MAC play began.
That non-con slate included three games against teams outside of Division I, which the selection committee will not consider as part of their resume. The lone game against a Quad 2 opponent was a three-point home win over conference foe Akron back in January. Akron and Kent State are the only other teams in the MAC with at least 20 wins, which explains why the Redhawks have a 9-0 record against Quad 3 opponents and a 15-0 slate against the least valuable opponents in Quad 4.
Team | Record | Q1+Q2 record | NET ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
Miami (OH) | 28-0 (15-0) | 1-0 | 48 |
Auburn | 15-13 (6-9) | 7-13 | 35 |
TCU | 18-10 (8-7) | 8-8 | 46 |
Indiana | 17-11 (8-9) | 4-11 | 39 |
Ohio State | 17-11 (9-8) | 7-11 | 38 |
Texas | 17-11 (8-7) | 7-10 | 40 |
The result is that, despite their shiny record, Miami's resume leaves them vulnerable to getting left out. Their NET ranking of 48 entering Friday's game at Western Michigan falls below bubble teams such as 15-13 Auburn (35th), 17-11 Ohio State (38th), 16-11 Indiana (39th), 16-11 Texas (40th) and 18-10 TCU (46th). The Redhawks have a chance to render this all moot by running the table and winning the MAC Tournament, but what if they trip up and need an at-large bid into the Big Dance?
It's become popular among some experts (and SEC fans) to argue that such a poor strength of schedule should disqualify their at-large candidacy, that the selection committee shouldn't reward a team
Why Miami (Ohio) is a litmus test for mid-majors in March Madness
The Redhawks still have three regular-season games remaining: at Western Michigan, Toledo and at Ohio. Those latter two could be tricky tests against teams in the top half of the conference, but it's more than likely that Miami enters championship week still perfect. The MAC tournament presents a stiffer test, as they would have to win three games in three days to wrap up an automatic bid — including the proposition of having to take down a very good Akron team one more to punch their ticket to the Big Dance.
If the Redhawks do lose in the MAC Tournament, they could be sweating out an invitation to March Madness despite carrying a 32-1 or 33-1 record, which is a ludicrous proposition. Even though it is fair to point out that Miami shouldn't have scheduled three games against non-D1 opponents, or that they should've done more to get stronger non-conference foes on their slate, any argument to keep them out defies logic — because at the end of the day, critics are trying to punish them for winning basketball games.
Winning 28 straight basketball games, no matter who the opposition is, is not an easy task. The idea that teams like Ohio State or Auburn would go undefeated against a schedule like the ones the Redhawks would play is also flawed, since all it takes is one bad shooting night, foul trouble to key players or watching an opponent nail 15 3s to lead to a loss.
Miami has survived 28 straight challenges at this point of the season, indicating they are a good basketball team worthy of inclusion to the NCAA Tournament. Even if they stumble against Akron or Kent State in the MAC Tournament, winning all of those games should at least get them a ticket to the First Four in Dayton, where they would have an opportunity to show what they are made of on the March Madness stage.
The First Four was initially marketed as a means for the last few bubble teams into the field to play their way into the field, a good way to help high-achieving mid-majors who fell short in their conference tournaments. VCU was a strong proof of concept when they went from the First Four to the Final Four in 2011, while the likes of Iona (2012) gave the MAAC an at-large and all four teams in 2013's First Four (Saint Mary's, Middle Tennessee, La Salle, and Boise State) were mid-majors.
Mid-majors continued to have healthy representation in the First Four until the NCAA retired the RPI as its primary rating tool and replaced it with the NET, which places more of an emphasis on who teams play and where they play them. Prior to the introduction of the NET, mid-major teams (who we will count as schools outside the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten, SEC and Big East) received 15 First Four slots compared to 17 for power conference schools, giving them 46.9 percent of those final at-large bids.
The advent of the NET has shifted things firmly the other way, with mid-majors getting just eight of 24 available at-larges in the First Four between 2019 and 2025 — a rate of 33 percent. The NET has made it easier for teams in power conferences to inflate their resume metrics by default, as playing 18-20 league games (and a few non-conference games against other Power 5 schools) offers a built-in advantage that mid-majors simply don't have.
Mid-majors are often punished for failing to play enough quality opponents, but scheduling is a two-way street that requires buy-in from top schools. While a few coaches, like Alabama's Nate Oats, are willing to give some of those good mid-major teams a shot in non-conference play, it makes little sense for most Power 5 schools to do: There's little benefit to a win, while a loss not only hurts your NET ranking but gives a team like Miami something they can point to come Selection Sunday.
The committee has shifted more towards rewarding middling power conference teams with the final at-large bids in recent years. They allowed a bad Virginia team reach the First Four in 2024 ahead of a 28-6 Indiana State group, while North Carolina went 1-12 in Quad 1 games a year ago and got a spot over worthy candidates like a 24-10 Boise State.
The current system rewards teams for playing good opponents rather than actually beating them, which is why an Auburn team carrying 13 losses and an Ohio State team with one Quad 1 win is favored to get in the field according to relevant resume metrics over an undefeated Redhawks team. The Buckeyes' one Quad 1 is also a bit fraudulent: It only became reality when 12-16 Northwestern won at Indiana this week, pushing the Wildcats into the Top 75 of the NET and making Ohio State's road win in Evanston count as a Q1 result.
Power conference teams are handed every advantage in the process, which should also benefit them when unwanted expansion arrives for March Madness in the coming years. But those teams have had all season to demonstrate that they can't hang against good teams. Miami hasn't gotten the chance to prove themselves against the big boys yet, but that's exactly the point: We know that Auburn isn't very good, so why not let high-achieving mid-majors have their turn?
The best solution here is to let teams like Miami in the field even if they can't secure their autobids. There has been a lot of complaining in recent years about how Cinderella has vanished from March Madness, but a big part of the problem is that some of the best candidates get left at the alter simply because they couldn't win three games in four days or less to punch a ticket to dance.