6 biggest snubs from the March Madness bracket in 2024

Providence Friars

We'll stick with the Big East theme here as we round out our snubs with Providence, another program from the second-best conference in the country who didn't get enough respect. The Friars undoubtedly went through a down period after losing star Bryce Hopkins for the season in January, but the body of work Providence built up should have merited a more thorough examination than the committee gave it.

Providence posted a solid 6-9 record in Quad 1 games, easily the most Quad 1 victories for a team left out of the field. Those victories weren't cheap either as the Friars beat Marquette, Creighton twice and Wisconsin, which is far more than Virginia accomplished with its two Quad 1 wins being a three-point neutral court win over Florida and a one-point home win over Clemson, neither of which came in higher than a 6-seed.

Metrics worked against the Friars, whose NET rating of 57 was a bit high for an at-large, although not much worse than the 54 that got the Cavaliers in. All 13 of Providence's losses were in Quad 1 or Quad 2, which may have been punished by the committee for having 11 of its wins be of the Quad 4 variety.

Non-conference scheduling was a bit of an issue for Providence, which willingly played Columbia, Milwaukee, Lehigh, Wagner, Brown and Sacred Heart but it isn't more egregious than some of the NET manipulation Big 12 schools pulled off. The collection of wins that the Friars stacked up deserved far more serious consideration for the NCAA Tournament than the committee gave it by failing to even include Providence in the First Four teams out.