March Madness 2026: Here are the 5 biggest NCAA men's tournament snubs
· Yahoo Sports
This would be the most ludicrous possible year for college sports leaders to try to ram NCAA tournament expansion down our throats.
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There were scarcely enough worthy bubble teams to fill out a 68-team field, let alone a 76-team one.
When CBS unveiled this year’s bracket on Sunday evening, Texas snagged one of the final bids despite a pedestrian 18-14 record and losses in five of its last six games. So did SMU even though the Mustangs also endured a similar late-season nosedive and finished with a sub-.500 record in league play.
Miami (Ohio) also controversially earned the final at-large bid awarded by the committee. The RedHawks (31-1) were the only team to finish the men’s college basketball regular season without a loss, but they piled up wins against a schedule ranked 340th, one featuring three games against NAIA opponents and a handful of other non-league matchups against the dregs of Division I.
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While those bubble teams experienced the relief of hearing their name called, others weren’t so lucky. Here are this year’s biggest NCAA tournament snubs, each of whom the selection committee found to be even less deserving than the flawed teams who made the 68-team field ahead of them.
1. Oklahoma (19-15, 7-11 SEC)
WAB: 49 | SOR: 46 | KenPom: 40 | NET: 47 | Q1: 4-10 | Q2: 6-5 | Q3: 2-0 | Q4: 7-0
As recently as early February, Oklahoma was a sub-.500 team on a nine-game losing streak with no realistic hope of making the NCAA tournament. To their credit, the Sooners kept fighting, started defending and rebounding better and out of nowhere turned their season around.
It started with a one-point road win at Vanderbilt. Then came a rout of Georgia. Oklahoma kept the momentum going into the SEC tournament, taking down South Carolina and Texas A&M before pushing Arkansas to the game’s final possession.
“This team is playing their best basketball,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser told reporters after the Arkansas loss. “I don't think people want to see us in the tournament.”
Unfortunately for Oklahoma, committee members are among those people. While the Sooners’ late-season surge lifted them into the bubble conversation, they were still just 4-10 in Quadrant 1 and 10-15 in the top two quadrants. Their profile was similar to that of Texas, just with fewer Quadrant 1 wins and key road wins.
2. Auburn (17-16, 7-11 SEC)
WAB: 44 | SOR: 43 | KenPom: 38 | NET: 39 | Q1: 4-13 | Q2: 3-2 | Q3: 4-1 | Q4: 6-0
Never before has an at-large bid been awarded to a team with 16 or more total losses or to a team that is just a single game over .500. Auburn didn’t accomplish enough to persuade this year’s committee to break with either precedent.
The case for Auburn was that the Tigers have played the nation’s second-toughest schedule and showed the ability to defeat elite teams. They boasted marquee wins over Florida, St. John’s, Arkansas and Kentucky, as well as victories over fellow bubble teams NC State and Texas. Auburn’s team-sheets metrics also compared favorably with those of other bubble teams. Its résumé-based metrics were in the low-to-mid 40s. The predictive ones were even better.
"Our guys have some of the best wins in college basketball," Auburn coach Steven Pearl told reporters Thursday, adding that Auburn is a “team that can win games in the tournament.”
Of course, the counterpoint to Pearl’s stump speech was that Auburn simply didn’t win enough games. The Tigers went 4-13 in Quadrant 1 games and 11-16 against the top three Quadrants. Yes, they played a lot of good teams, but they lost to most of them.
3. San Diego State (22-11, 14-6 MWC)
WAB: 45 | SOR: 51 | KenPom: 47 | NET: 45 | Q1: 3-7 | Q2: 6-3 | Q3: 6-1 | Q4: 6-0
With eight returning players from an NCAA tournament team, three veteran transfers and a pair of promising freshmen, San Diego State appeared to have the ingredients for another strong season.
For whatever reason, it just didn’t fully materialize.
It started in non-league play when the Aztecs took a double-overtime home loss to Troy, trailed by as many as 18 against middling Baylor and got overwhelmed by the likes of Michigan and Arizona. Oregon was the one power-conference team that San Diego State beat, but the Ducks uncharacteristically lost 20 games this season and wound up as a Quadrant 3 victory.
The hole that San Diego State dug was deep enough that finishing outright second place in the Mountain West and advancing to the title game of the league tournament wasn’t quite enough. The Aztecs were a solid 9-10 in Quadrant 1 and 2 games, but their most notable achievements all season were a home win over Utah State and taking two of three from New Mexico.
This was San Diego State’s 12th trip to the Mountain West title game in the past 15 seasons. The Aztecs have lost nine times. They had already secured an NCAA tournament bid before most of those previous losses, but this time they fell short.
4. New Mexico (23-10, 13-7 MWC)
WAB: 58 | SOR: 64 | KenPom: 50 | NET: 46 | Q1: 2-7 | Q2: 6-1 | Q3: 5-2 | Q4: 9-0
New Mexico exceeded modest expectations in Eric Olen’s debut season, but that will be little consolation prize after the Lobos narrowly missed the NCAA tournament. Needing a victory in a Mountain West semifinal against San Diego State that amounted to a bubble-elimination game for both teams, New Mexico dropped a 64-62 heartbreaker on a BJ Davis go-ahead layup with 2.1 seconds left in regulation.
New Mexico’s non-league victories over Santa Clara and VCU boosted its profile, as did a solid 8-8 record against the top two quadrants, but the Lobos otherwise didn’t have enough meat on their resume. Losses at New Mexico State and at home against Colorado State were anchors on the Lobos’ resume. They finished with as many Quadrant 3 losses (2) as they had Quadrant 1 wins.
5. Indiana (18-14, 9-11 Big Ten)
WAB: 52 | SOR: 50 | KenPom: 45 | NET: 41 | Q1: 3-10 | Q2: 3-4 | Q3: 5-0 | Q4: 7-0
Indiana was poised to make the NCAA tournament with room to spare before a stunning late-season implosion. The Hoosiers dropped six of their final seven games culminating with Wednesday’s Big Ten tournament-opening dud against Northwestern in their last chance to make their case to the selection committee.
That loss essentially extinguished Indiana’s fading hopes of making the NCAA tournament in Darren DeVries’ debut season. The Hoosiers did beat Purdue, UCLA and Wisconsin during Big Ten play, but they were just 3-10 in Quadrant 1 games and 6-14 against the top two quadrants. That’s an NIT résumé if ever there was one.
The most discouraging part for Indiana is that this was a team assembled to win now. DeVries sacrificed building for the future to bring in veteran transfers to try to get the Hoosiers back to the NCAA tournament. That didn’t happen. And now Indiana has little to show for year one under its new coach.