Sometimes, our best-laid plans just flop.
In March, this writer rolled out a historical series looking at NCAA Tournament at-large selection and the proverbial ‘bubble’, examining teams just above and below the cutline in the tourney every year from 1985 through 2019. The series ran in early March, five years at a time, and was to culminate in a ninth and final piece Thursday, March 12, with our view of the 16 biggest NCAA tourney snubs of the 64+ team era.
That was the plan. By evening of the night before March 12, it started becoming obvious that not all was normal in the sports world, and this coronavirus we’d been increasingly hearing about increasingly the last week or so was more than just a novelty. The NCAA earlier that day had announced March Madness would be played without fans. That night, the NBA announced the suspension of its season after the positive COVID-19 test of Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert.
Thursday morning brought questions of whether the remaining college basketball conference tournaments would be played. Indeed, all conference tourneys were canceled by early afternoon, and a few hours later the NCAA Tournament was gone, too.
With the biggest snub of all-no tourney, period-bracketology already was the least of most college basketball fans’ thought, much less a bracketology history project. In the end, these things just aren’t that important, and we decided not to run the final part at that time.
Flashing forward 5 1/2 months later, and it’s still hard to think about all the debates and comparisons from bracketology past or even present. Whether there will be a season this year or not is up for date, much less what form a season will take if it does happen.
Still, we wanted to finish this project, for the sake of closure and to put a bow on it. And frankly, after this summer, it seems a lot of us could use some diversions in life and maybe a little bit of debate with a little less edge.
For whatever it’s worth, especially in times like this, here is one person’s view of the 16 biggest NCAA Tournament snubs since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Additional information on these teams in most cases is also available within specific years of our Bubbles, Sitting on the Fence and Brackets series.
We know many lists see this topic differently, and that’s OK. Though we’d challenge any of them to show as much work as we attempted to do with this project.
Like we said at the outset of this project, we make no apologies for sympathizing with teams from outside television’s selected sphere. From here, it’s hard to imagine as a snub a school with 13-14 losses or one that by choice plays a cream puff non-conference schedule. You won’t find many teams with double-digit losses on this list, though there are a few.
A list like this could easily be double in size, or more, especially when covering such a wide time span. We boiled it down to sixteen, which in many ways is such a perfect number for the NCAA Tournament.
We count them down…
16. Colorado State 2015 (27-6 record) The Rams were not considered a complete lock before the 2015 NCAA Tournament. Their chances of their being left out were thought to be so thin, though, that coach Larry Eustachy sat out star J.J. Avila in CSU’s Mountain West Conference tourney semifinal against San Diego State, with an injury Eustachy said he probably could’ve played through. The Rams lost to the Aztecs, then were left out of the NCAAs in favor of 13-loss Indiana, Texas and UCLA teams. It was ridiculous. Colorado State was in or near the top 25 most of the season, a sign of the respect for the Rams’ strength that year. CSU was a fair 2-3 against the top 50 and 5-5 vs. the top 100, and 10-5 against the top 150. A 14-0 start included a Great Alaska Shootout title and respectable road wins at Colorado and New Mexico State. It wasn’t an overwhelming resume, but coming from a solid conference that sent three teams to the NCAAs in this season, how many more games does a team like this have to win?
15. Drexel 2012 (27-7 record) Bruiser Flint is on a short list of coaches led by Barry Hinson who have been truly shafted by the selection committee multiple times. A 19-game winning streak for the Dragons this year finally ended in the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament final with a 59-56 loss to VCU in what was essentially a road game at the Richmond Coliseum. The Rams were in the Final Four the year before, seeming to validate the respect given the Colonial in 2011 when it received a record three bids. Thus, one would’ve thought Drexel winning the regular season title one year later in that same CAA plus being red-hot from January onward would’ve been a serious plus. Instead, the selection committee almost went out of its way to turn its nose up at the CAA, ignored Drexel’s resume that also included 11 road wins, and apparently focused on the Dragons’ RPI (66) and low number of top-shelf wins (1-1 vs. the top 50, 4-3 against the top 100). Flint, his team and the CAA deserved better.
14. Fordham 1991 (24-7 record) It might generate snickers now, but there was a time when Fordham was a respected program regionally and even nationally to an extent. The Rams in this season won the first-ever Patriot League title, and won the conference tournament, too. Unfortunately, they were forced to take another step yet after that to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, and in a play-in game with the Northeast Conference winner Fordham lost to St. Francis (Pa.). Should that have ended the Rams’ candidacy? No, not after defeating Seton Hall, Vanderbilt and Xavier teams that all made the NCAA Tournament, including Seton Hall as a 3 seed. With New Orleans (a 14 seed) and Northern Illinois (13 seed) in as at-large picks, this was already a good year for lesser-known programs to make the NCAAs, but there should’ve been room for the Rams too.
13. Creighton 2006 (19-9 record) This Bluejays team in hindsight now and even at the time was rarely thought of as a snub. It should’ve been. In a banner season for the Missouri Valley Conference where the league put four teams in the NCAAs and a fifth (Missouri State) had the highest RPI ever to be left out of the field, Creighton was thought of as essentially the league’s sixth-best team. Yet, the Jays were 6-6 against the top 50 and drilled eventual Final Four team George Mason by 20 on the road early in the season. Other than its conference affiliation, the Jays’ resume screamed an 8 or 9 seed in the NCAAs-it is almost impossible to imagine a major conference team with six top 50 wins in 12 chances and a 19-9 record being left out. Clearly, the selection committee had no idea what to do with the strength of the MVC in a year when it set a record with four bids, but we would say it deserved six.
12. Hawaii 1990 (23-9 record) The 1990 NCAA Tournament is the all-time standard by which other tourneys will be measured against, now and perhaps forever. The most competitive tourney ever (24 games decided by three points or less or in OT) was also a tough field to crack, with at least 4-5 teams who had strong cases to be in, but few glaring candidates to take out. There should’ve been room for Hawaii. The Rainbows had a 40 RPI at a time when that was important, but in the Western Athletic Conference finished just behind Colorado State and BYU, who tied for the regular season title. Hawaii split with both teams in the regular season, though, and outlasted both in the WAC Tournament-a feat that deserved acknowledgement from the selection committee considering the Rainbows played their final seven games of the season away from home, a 20-day road trip. Hawaii advanced to the WAC final before losing to homestanding Texas-El Paso, a team the Rainbows defeated twice in the regular season. There also was a victory over 26-win Southern Illinois, another snub that may have deserved better. A three-point loss way back in November in the Great Alaska Shootout semifinals to Kansas State-which snuck into the NCAAs with a 17-14 record, may have been the decider, but it shouldn’t have come down to that.
11. Creighton 2009 (26-7 record) It is pure coincidence that Missouri Valley teams wind up so frequently on this list. It says a lot about the run the Valley was on in the 2000s, but also the fight for respect it waged at a time when it was finishing among the top five or six conferences in the country on more than one or two occasions, and regularly was in the top 10. The conference had a number of at-large contenders in the latter half of the 2000s especially, and a lot that missed but probably shouldn’t have. In the case of Creighton in 2009, the Bluejays had a strikingly similar resume to LSU that year. LSU was 1-3 against the top 50, 11-6 against the top 100, 6-3 on the road; Creighton was 2-2 vs. the top 50, 9-5 against the top 100 and 8-4 on the road. Both had 26-7 overall records, schedule strengths were similar and even their average opponent RPI was almost the same. The Tigers were deemed good enough for an 8 seed. Given that, there was no reason whatsoever that the Jays with similar numbers shouldn’t have been at least in the field, too.
10. Utah State 2005 (25-3 record) A gaudy record isn’t automatically a convincing case for NCAA tourney conclusion; teams like College of Charleston (24-3) and Davidson (25-4) both missed the field in 1996 with few protestations. The Aggies’ record this year, though, is the best winning percentage (.893) to ever be left out of the Big Dance. Utah State spent the second half of the year in the national rankings, dominated the Big West Conference, and defeated a BYU team that grabbed one of the last at-large spots. A regular season championship in the 18th-ranked conference in the NCAA’s computers and ten road wins on the season should’ve been enough to offset a one-point loss in the Big West tourney semifinals and get USU in the NCAAs.
9. Missouri State 2006 (20-8 record) “Lowest RPI ever to miss the NCAA Tournament” is an albatross arguably the most-snubbed program of all-time will carry forever. The frustration wasn’t necessarily that the Bears had a sure thing top-end resume this season. They didn’t, with a 4-8 mark against the top 50 and 5-8 vs. the top 100. The real issue for Barry Hinson’s team was the double standard they faced. If this was a program from a traditional power league, it’s nigh impossible to imagine missing the NCAAs with four top 50 wins, 20 wins overall, no bad losses, a tie for second in their conference and eight wins in its final 10 games. To say nothing of possessing a power rating that the NCAA never even came close to turning down from one of those leagues. It’s hard not to think there was some brand name bias working against the Valley in 2006.
8. Missouri State 2007 (22-10 record) The Bears, again. For the second straight year and third or fourth time in his tenure, Barry Hinson’s team didn’t have an unimpeachable resume, but it should’ve been good enough, and it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t have been if you took the brand names off. For the second straight year, the MVC was the sixth-rated league in the country, yet after its teams grabbed four bids the year before to the consternation of Billy Packer and TV heads, this time the league couldn’t even put three teams in the NCAA Tournament. Missouri State was 3-5 against the top 50, 9-9 against the top 100, and had one of the best non-conference wins in the country, defeating NCAA 2 seed Wisconsin on a neutral court. The Bears also finished 12-6 in the No. 6-ranked conference in the country and had the No. 42 strength of schedule. Again, it wasn’t a perfect resume-MSU went 0-5 against the top two teams in the Valley that year (Southern Illinois and Creighton). If those overall numbers belonged to an ACC team, though, does anyone think they would’ve been left out?
7. Butler 2002 (25-5 record) Certainly, the Bulldogs this year were a tough team to evaluate for the simple reason that their 77 RPI would’ve been the highest ever to receive an at-large spot. Still, Butler proved it could beat name competition (Indiana, Purdue and Washington) rolled through its conference and was not far from a perfect record, with its five losses all by nine points or less and four by a combined nine points. The committee also saw enough of Butler in the past (a blowout NCAA tourney win over Wake Forest the year before, a loss at the buzzer to eventual national runner-up Florida two years prior) to have given the benefit of the doubt. If the committee was able to put in a New Mexico team with an RPI just three spots better three years earlier, it shouldn’t have been that big a stretch to put in Butler.
6. SW Missouri State 2000 (22-10 record) For all the times the school now known as Missouri State has just missed the NCAA Tournament, for us this was the committee’s biggest miss. The Bears had just two top 50 wins in six shots in this season but were 9-6 against the top 100. They finished 13-5 in the Missouri Valley to come in a strong second to Indiana State (which did earn an at-large bid) and also were red-hot at a time that was regularly a serious consideration for the committee, winning ten straight before falling in the MVC Tournament final. The non-conference schedule wasn’t loaded with big names, but it was solid with seven top 100 opponents and four top-75 wins. Normally a 34 RPI was a virtual shoo-in for a bid in these times. Barry Hinson deserved better in his first season in Springfield.
5. St. Bonaventure 2016 (22-8 record) It really was bewildering how the Bonnies were left out this year. A 22-8 record included a tie for the Atlantic 10 regular season title, a 3-2 record vs. the RPI top 50 including three top 25 wins, and a 7-5 mark vs. the top 100. St. Bonaventure was even smoking hot down the stretch until a double-overtime loss to Davidson in the A-10 tourney. The non-conference showing wasn’t great; even acknowledging that, their league showing, top-end quality wins and performance against the top 100 meant the Bonnies’ resume was obviously, thoroughly better than teams like Michigan, Tulsa and Vanderbilt that got in ahead of them.
4. Drexel 2007 (23-8 record) The message for a team like the Dragons in 2006-07 is that you apparently have to be perfect. Drexel defeated Creighton, Syracuse, Temple and Villanova-all on the road. In fact, it won 13 games in all on the road this year, tied for most in the country. It was pretty much impossible to ask Bruiser Flint to have done more out of conference. The Dragons did finish fourth in a very competitive Colonial Athletic Association, where they went 13-5 and the top four teams all won between 13 and 16 games. The top two teams got in (VCU with the automatic bid, Old Dominion as an at-large) but there was no reason Drexel with an obviously better resume couldn’t have jumped third-place Hofstra.
3. Wisconsin-Green Bay 1992 (25-4 record) Even by now, Dick Bennett and his son Tony were picking up a reputation for excellence in college basketball. The Phoenix in 1991 lost to Michigan State at the buzzer in the NCAA Tournament, returned much of that team and were even better the next year, winning 25 games, dominating much of their schedule and even winning at Purdue by 16 points. UWGB was 25-3 before being stunned in the Mid-Continent Conference (now Summit League) tourney semifinals, in part because of an injury to starting guard John Martinez. The Mid-Continent was weaker that year (19th in the Sagarin ratings) than it had been in the past when it nabbed at-large bids four times in six years from 1986-91. Even then, like Butler in 2002, the committee should’ve known how good UWGB was. After seven years of the 64-team era of being friendly to teams like this, the committee suddenly took a hard line in 1992. It was wrong, a tremendous oversight.
2. Monmouth 2016 (27-7 record) A recent story, and one that won’t be forgotten soon. The Hawks won 27 games while playing 23 of 34 contests away from home. They won a conference championship. They won a nation’s best 13 road games. They played big names away from home, beat them, and did everything the selection committee could’ve possibly asked of them in non-conference scheduling, even playing just a single non-league game at home. The committee essentially said that was nice but found a reason to penalize Monmouth: three sub-200 road losses. Those shouldn’t have come close to wiping all that good away, even if one believed they were a problem. And as we noted, it shouldn’t have been nearly as big a problem as it may sound at first blush if the committee was doing its homework, given that teams in the top conferences the few times they played them that year lost sub-200 road games at about the same rate as Monmouth.
1. Long Beach State 1990 (22-8 record) You don’t hear much about this team, because it’s not Syracuse or from the ACC or a so-called ‘power’ conference (though Seth Greenberg was a coach on the team), but you should. In 1990 a team that should’ve been firmly in the NCAA Tournament as an 8 or 9 seed was kept out because the selection committee felt it needed to send a message. That’s essentially what happened to the 49ers this year. Long Beach had wins over an NCAA tourney 2 seed from the Big Ten (Purdue), two Ws over a 6 seed (Big West rival New Mexico State) and another on the road at a 10 seed at-large pick (Texas)-four RPI top 35 wins in all. It was kept out because the committee understandably didn’t like conferences playing their championship games during or after the unveiling of the bracket. That was understandable, even if TV was pulling the strings resulting in the Big West playing at the time it did. Long Beach State was simply the wrong team to use to try to make a point, and there’s no way they should’ve needed to beat UNLV after the selections were announced to deserve their spot. The 49ers belonged solidly in the tourney; that they weren’t in was an injustice.
A short but by no means exhaustive roll call of other teams considered for this list
West Virginia 1985 (20-8 record)
Arkansas-Little Rock 1988 (24-6)
UC Santa Barbara 1989 (21-8)
Southern Illinois 1990 (26-7)
Jackson State 1993 (24-8)
UNLV 1993 (21-7)
Ohio University 1995 (23-9)
Arkansas-Little Rock 1996 (23-6)
Davidson 1996 (25-5)
Bowling Green 1997 (22-9)
SW Missouri State 1997 (24-8)
Tulane 1997 (20-10)
Gonzaga 1998 (23-9)
UC Irvine 2001 (25-4)
Buffalo 2005 (22-9)
Hofstra 2006 (24-6)
Virginia Tech 2011 (21-11)
Murray State 2015 (27-5)
Valparaiso 2016 (26-6)
Middle Tennessee State 2018 (24-7)
More from the Bubbles, Sitting on the Fence and Brackets series which looked at the history of the NCAA Tournament bubble, teams that made it in and teams that didn’t in the era of the 64+ team tournament field, from 1985 up to present:
Introduction
Part 1: 1985-89
Part 2: 1990-94
Part 3: 1995-99
Part 4: 2000-04
Part 5: 2005-09
Part 6: 2010-14
Part 7: 2015-19
List of 16 oh-so-close NCAA Tournament misses
Thank you for reading.
