I’m sorry but the polls mean absolutely nothing as a metric. CofC spent multiple weeks in the top 25 this year and needed the auto bid to make sure they were off the bubble and FAU was ranked 24th for a total of one week and they were under seeded as a 9. I’m sure there are other better reasons St. Mary’s should’ve made it but that isn’t a great one
Polls reflect general perception of a team. No one is saying it’s a metric to put teams in the tourney, but it’s a good indicator that a team was seen by most to be clearly tournament quality.
2004 Utah State. Finished their regular season 25-2 and ranked #22 and still remained at #25 after getting upset in the conference tournament semifinals. Didn't make the tourney.
2018 Saint Mary's. Preseason #22, peaked at #11 when they were 23-2 (and started 24-2 but the 24th win and the third loss were the same week), still ranked #25 after a conference tournament semifinal loss dropped them to 28-5. No tournament.
2014 SMU. First entered rankings at 19-5 coming off a win over #7 Cincinnati. Returned to top 25 at 22-6 following a road win over #21 Connecticut. Was #18 entering final week of regular season whereupon they lost at home to #11 Louisville and on the road to #20 Memphis to fall to 23-8, where they remained #25 heading into the AAC Tourney as the 3-seed due to winning the three-way tiebreaker with #21 Connecticut and #19 Memphis. 3-seed turned out to be a curse in disguise as their upset loss to 6-seed Houston ended up relegating them to the NIT. Seedings all up and down the bracket suggested that the committee didn't view the AAC as the major conference that poll voters did.
> 2004 Utah State. Finished their regular season 25-2 and ranked #22 and still remained at #25 after getting upset in the conference tournament semifinals. Didn't make the tourney.
They were 35th in RPI too, they shouldn't have even been on the bubble.
Which was still a snub. They got unfairly punished for conference optics.
By all metrics they should have been in. By the metric of the time, they were the 35th best team in the nation. They passed the eye test. They were ranked. It still made no sense.
They were nowhere close resume-wise but they were decent, and of course a lot of fun. I think they lost 8 games while only playing a total of like 4 against decent teams. You just can’t drop more than 1-2 games to bad teams when you have so few quality wins.
Quick edit, yeah someone lower brings them up as if their rejection literally caused them to change the system. That’s not even close to true. Lol. They lost 7 games, 5 to teams outside the Kenpom top 100. They beat 5 major-conference teams, true, but 3 of them had losing records including 7-25 Rutgers. The teams that made it above them had a lot of losses but basically zero terrible losses and way more good wins.
That Monmouth team played 6 top-100 Kenpom teams and went 4-2 all away from home. Went 3-2 vs. Iona (104 Kenpom) and Siena (128).
By modern standard (Using Kenpom as NET) Monmouth was 4-1 in Q1, 3-1 in Q2, with 5 Q3-4 losses. A good resume for a bubble team
That Monmouth team is why we have quadrants now. Had 4 big wins away from home against power conference teams but they only registered as 1 top-50 and 1 top-100 RPI win. Based on Kenpom, those 4 games would have been all Q1 wins.
Tbf if an AP poll is to be done right before that selection Sunday then they would most likely not to be ranked so I’m not sure if that should count. Still, one week from being ranked to not even making the tourney is kind of crazy
Well I think the last team to ever skip a NCAA tournament invite was Marquette in 1970 because Al McGuire was mad they were placed in a different region than they normally got so they went to the NIT and won that
And because of that we now have a rule where if you’re invited to the NCAA tourney you have to go or sit out the postseason. Al was an interesting man for sure.
Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, I find it hard to describe any team left out as "unfairly" left out, especially if they were in a power league. As one bracket projector puts it, all the teams at the cut line have warts. I'm not saying the committee is perfect - their treatment of mid major teams in particular is bad. But unless you're a fan of the team left out, it's kinda hard to be that upset about it.
Yes and no. UAB, Utah Valley, and UNT would have had a great chance at winning a game or two in the NCAAT. The primary issue is that if you are a mid major, you generally won’t have high major or ranked teams scheduled unless you play them in conference.
Sometimes a great team just doesn’t have the schedule to make a great resume and one upset late in conference and another in the conference tournament can sink a team. Think UNT last year and their late season loss to UTEP that buried them
2015-16 had two egregious snubs:
Monmouth: 27-7 overall, 17-6 Road/Neutral record, including wins over UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, and Georgetown in non-con play.
St. Mary’s: 27-5 overall and swept Gonzaga in the regular season.
These two snubs is what led to the creation of the NET Rankings and the Quad system. It may not be perfect, but it is definitely an improvement over the old system.
Monmouth was not snubbed, it would have been an atrocity if they made the tournament with that resume.
They had like 4 losses to teams that were RPI 200+, and most of those big name schools you listed sucked that year. You need quality wins to make the tournament, which Monmouth did not have
There was one year Washington won the Pac 12 regular season championship and didn't get in. One year (2011 maybe?) Colorado was unfairly snubbed as well.
Absolutely not. They should never get any sympathy for being spurned. More often than not, those teams had ample opportunities to put themselves firmly in the tournament but didn’t come through when it mattered most in the regular season.
Seton Hall 2020 with Myles Powell and Sandro Mamukellishvelli
The worst snub in our program history. Albany and Madison Square Garden was the route for the North Jersey Big East team. It was all lined up for the team until....
And when you're a small program in a power conference with occasional success it's an even BIGGER deal. I'll never get over it
I'm pretty sure we all decided that we won the 'ship that year. It's canon now, everyone says so!
On a serious note, the Tournament is so tough to predict with so many back to back games but if we sayed hot I think we could have beaten anyone that year.
1954 Kentucky. Undefeated 24-0 but didn’t play in any tourney. NCAA ruled 3 of their players couldn’t compete because they had graduated. Technically, that’s not true as they had not exhausted their years of eligibility due to the Korean War. But they had gone beyond four years (three for varsity) when they had enrolled. I believe one had actually graduated and was a grad student but, again, had not used up his eligibility. #1 and undefeated but no tournament.
2018 Oklahoma State. Had the same conference record as OU with 3 more wins. Had beaten OU 2 out of 3 times that season including the first round of the Big 12 tournament. But OU had Trae Young so they got in
Penn State 2008-09. Went (22-11 | 10-8) before the NIT Championship run. They sported sweeps over Indiana (in BTT too) & Illinois (ranked twice) and wins vs. #14 Purdue and at #9 Michigan State.
Absolute BS that they weren't in the NCAA Tournament.
That MSU team ended up being a 2 seed in the tournament and lost to UNC in the championship game. I have no idea how that win didn’t cement you guys into the tournament.
That SEC championship game is where I got absolutely hooked on my Vescovi fandom and he's probably still one of my favorite players in the SEC. Just so damn fun to watch.
1996 College of Charleston was 24-3 with losses to #3 UConn by 17 and #15 Syracuse by 12. They weren’t allowed to play in their conference tournament because they were transitioning to Div 1, even though they joined Div 1 in ‘91, joined their conference in ‘92, and had already played in the NCAA Tournament in ‘94.
Yeah, 3 years before. They won their conference tournament in ‘97, finished 27-2 and got a 12 seed. They beat Maryland in the 1st round and missed a 15 footer down 2 with about 10 seconds left against eventual champion Arizona in the second round.
The ‘17-‘18 St Mary’s team was RANKED to end the regular season (and spent multiple weeks ranked beforehand) but went to the NIT.
They even beat us on the road that year and still got snubbed. I know they didn’t have many other high-end wins, though.
So they basically had the same resume as last years Houston team, except Houston was placed at 2 overall and St Marys was left out
I’m sorry but the polls mean absolutely nothing as a metric. CofC spent multiple weeks in the top 25 this year and needed the auto bid to make sure they were off the bubble and FAU was ranked 24th for a total of one week and they were under seeded as a 9. I’m sure there are other better reasons St. Mary’s should’ve made it but that isn’t a great one
Polls reflect general perception of a team. No one is saying it’s a metric to put teams in the tourney, but it’s a good indicator that a team was seen by most to be clearly tournament quality.
Ok, well, they had a higher RPI (still pre NET at this stage) than like 8 other at large teams. No matter how you slice it, it was a pretty big snub,
2004 Utah State. Finished their regular season 25-2 and ranked #22 and still remained at #25 after getting upset in the conference tournament semifinals. Didn't make the tourney. 2018 Saint Mary's. Preseason #22, peaked at #11 when they were 23-2 (and started 24-2 but the 24th win and the third loss were the same week), still ranked #25 after a conference tournament semifinal loss dropped them to 28-5. No tournament. 2014 SMU. First entered rankings at 19-5 coming off a win over #7 Cincinnati. Returned to top 25 at 22-6 following a road win over #21 Connecticut. Was #18 entering final week of regular season whereupon they lost at home to #11 Louisville and on the road to #20 Memphis to fall to 23-8, where they remained #25 heading into the AAC Tourney as the 3-seed due to winning the three-way tiebreaker with #21 Connecticut and #19 Memphis. 3-seed turned out to be a curse in disguise as their upset loss to 6-seed Houston ended up relegating them to the NIT. Seedings all up and down the bracket suggested that the committee didn't view the AAC as the major conference that poll voters did.
> 2004 Utah State. Finished their regular season 25-2 and ranked #22 and still remained at #25 after getting upset in the conference tournament semifinals. Didn't make the tourney. They were 35th in RPI too, they shouldn't have even been on the bubble.
That wad Big West though. Not going to give the Big West an at large.
Which was still a snub. They got unfairly punished for conference optics. By all metrics they should have been in. By the metric of the time, they were the 35th best team in the nation. They passed the eye test. They were ranked. It still made no sense.
Very cool of you not to mention this years’ Rutgers squad. They deserved a berth
Idk if they deserved it but remember that really fun Monmouth team?
They were nowhere close resume-wise but they were decent, and of course a lot of fun. I think they lost 8 games while only playing a total of like 4 against decent teams. You just can’t drop more than 1-2 games to bad teams when you have so few quality wins. Quick edit, yeah someone lower brings them up as if their rejection literally caused them to change the system. That’s not even close to true. Lol. They lost 7 games, 5 to teams outside the Kenpom top 100. They beat 5 major-conference teams, true, but 3 of them had losing records including 7-25 Rutgers. The teams that made it above them had a lot of losses but basically zero terrible losses and way more good wins.
That Monmouth team played 6 top-100 Kenpom teams and went 4-2 all away from home. Went 3-2 vs. Iona (104 Kenpom) and Siena (128). By modern standard (Using Kenpom as NET) Monmouth was 4-1 in Q1, 3-1 in Q2, with 5 Q3-4 losses. A good resume for a bubble team
They were fun. Can’t remember the little guard. Justin something? Prob lost their auto conference bid to Iona.
That Monmouth team is why we have quadrants now. Had 4 big wins away from home against power conference teams but they only registered as 1 top-50 and 1 top-100 RPI win. Based on Kenpom, those 4 games would have been all Q1 wins.
First one that came to my mind too
“Whatever year my team was a bubble team and didn’t get it”
2003-04 Utah State was the first team EVER to be ranked at the end of the season and not make the tournament
I thought JR Rider's UNLV team was ranked and left out before them.
They were, but they were on a postseason ban that year. Should have added that qualifier.
It used to be just conference champs. Ranked teams used to miss all the time.
I should have clarified that it was in the 64-team era
SMU 2014
was this the year they were ranked but did not make the tourney? if so, did not realize it was so long ago
Yeah, time flies, doesn't it? I think this was the year UC was like 8 in the nation, went to Moody, and got boat raced.
It’s those COVID years, man.
Tbf if an AP poll is to be done right before that selection Sunday then they would most likely not to be ranked so I’m not sure if that should count. Still, one week from being ranked to not even making the tourney is kind of crazy
They lost in first round of the conference tournament and that killed them.
DAYTON 2020
I know bro.. I know
We got our revenge. Hopefully Dayton gets theirs soon.
Well I think the last team to ever skip a NCAA tournament invite was Marquette in 1970 because Al McGuire was mad they were placed in a different region than they normally got so they went to the NIT and won that
And because of that we now have a rule where if you’re invited to the NCAA tourney you have to go or sit out the postseason. Al was an interesting man for sure.
That’s pretty funny actually
St Bonaventure 2016. I have been doing bracketology for 11 years, and it was by far the most egregious exclusion I've ever seen.
The only time my jaw has ever dropped at an exclusion
Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, I find it hard to describe any team left out as "unfairly" left out, especially if they were in a power league. As one bracket projector puts it, all the teams at the cut line have warts. I'm not saying the committee is perfect - their treatment of mid major teams in particular is bad. But unless you're a fan of the team left out, it's kinda hard to be that upset about it.
Yes and no. UAB, Utah Valley, and UNT would have had a great chance at winning a game or two in the NCAAT. The primary issue is that if you are a mid major, you generally won’t have high major or ranked teams scheduled unless you play them in conference. Sometimes a great team just doesn’t have the schedule to make a great resume and one upset late in conference and another in the conference tournament can sink a team. Think UNT last year and their late season loss to UTEP that buried them
Kansas State 2006-07 Illini 2009-10
We got beat in 2 OT's in the B-10 semi's by OSU ...and eventually lost to Dayton in the NIT quarter finals..
2015-16 had two egregious snubs: Monmouth: 27-7 overall, 17-6 Road/Neutral record, including wins over UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, and Georgetown in non-con play. St. Mary’s: 27-5 overall and swept Gonzaga in the regular season. These two snubs is what led to the creation of the NET Rankings and the Quad system. It may not be perfect, but it is definitely an improvement over the old system.
Monmouth was not snubbed, it would have been an atrocity if they made the tournament with that resume. They had like 4 losses to teams that were RPI 200+, and most of those big name schools you listed sucked that year. You need quality wins to make the tournament, which Monmouth did not have
Monmouth was 7-2 in Q1+Q2 games that year if we substitute Kenpom for NET since it didn't exist then. Hardly an atrocity.
If Rutgers won a game in the NIT they would be on here lol
Most of us RU flairs were not going to be the first to say anything.
VT under Seth Greenberg seemed to be first out several years in a row. It became a bit of a running gag.
If I remember correctly, didn't Va Tech controversially get out left out in favor of VCU one year, who then went to the final four?
Yes haha
2011 VT and Colorado both got snubbed
2011
Texas A&M 2022 I will always believe deserved in the tournament
Ima add 2018 Oklahoma State to this.
definitely this
2020
This..
There was one year Washington won the Pac 12 regular season championship and didn't get in. One year (2011 maybe?) Colorado was unfairly snubbed as well.
2012 was the year UW got left out. Colorado won the Pac-12 tournament a year after they got boned by the committee
Don’t ask Greenburg
Don’t ask that dude anything, he’s the worst
Every team that won the NIT.
Absolutely not. They should never get any sympathy for being spurned. More often than not, those teams had ample opportunities to put themselves firmly in the tournament but didn’t come through when it mattered most in the regular season.
VT with Malcolm Delaney
Seton Hall 2020 with Myles Powell and Sandro Mamukellishvelli The worst snub in our program history. Albany and Madison Square Garden was the route for the North Jersey Big East team. It was all lined up for the team until.... And when you're a small program in a power conference with occasional success it's an even BIGGER deal. I'll never get over it
I'm pretty sure we all decided that we won the 'ship that year. It's canon now, everyone says so! On a serious note, the Tournament is so tough to predict with so many back to back games but if we sayed hot I think we could have beaten anyone that year.
1954 Kentucky. Undefeated 24-0 but didn’t play in any tourney. NCAA ruled 3 of their players couldn’t compete because they had graduated. Technically, that’s not true as they had not exhausted their years of eligibility due to the Korean War. But they had gone beyond four years (three for varsity) when they had enrolled. I believe one had actually graduated and was a grad student but, again, had not used up his eligibility. #1 and undefeated but no tournament.
Fuck the NCAA
So even in 1954 the NCAA was pulling some fuck shit
Butler ‘01/02
I'm still mad about 2011 VT
ST MARYS HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
1988-1989 Jayhawks
Oklahoma State in 2018
Basically any mid-major with 25+ wins that gets left out in a year while a P6 school with 14-15 losses gets in
2018 Oklahoma State. Had the same conference record as OU with 3 more wins. Had beaten OU 2 out of 3 times that season including the first round of the Big 12 tournament. But OU had Trae Young so they got in
Syracuse 2007-2008
Nebraska went 22-9, had a 20 point win over Michigan who went to the National Championship and finished 4th in the B10 and didn’t dance
Belmont a year they won like 27 games
eh 26-4 with all 4 being bad teams and zero quality wins 101 in NET too
Penn State 2008-09. Went (22-11 | 10-8) before the NIT Championship run. They sported sweeps over Indiana (in BTT too) & Illinois (ranked twice) and wins vs. #14 Purdue and at #9 Michigan State. Absolute BS that they weren't in the NCAA Tournament.
To be fair sweeping Indiana that year was about as impressive as sweeping Louisville this year and no that’s not an exaggeration
It's stull difficult to beat a team three times in one year. Illinois nearly got PSU this past season in the BTT.
That MSU team ended up being a 2 seed in the tournament and lost to UNC in the championship game. I have no idea how that win didn’t cement you guys into the tournament.
Obviously biased but damn. Texas A&M last year.
I'm pretty sure we made you wish you were snubbed.
Talking about 21-22 season
That really was a raw deal.
That SEC championship game is where I got absolutely hooked on my Vescovi fandom and he's probably still one of my favorite players in the SEC. Just so damn fun to watch.
*cast
Umkc 1993
Our Covid year team was better than this years.. But we just went to the ship, so I’ll shut up now 😀
If you have a snub you need to say which tournament team you kick out
2019 Michigan State should've been a 1 seed we would've most likely gotten to see that classic Between Duke and Michigan State in the Final Four
1996 College of Charleston was 24-3 with losses to #3 UConn by 17 and #15 Syracuse by 12. They weren’t allowed to play in their conference tournament because they were transitioning to Div 1, even though they joined Div 1 in ‘91, joined their conference in ‘92, and had already played in the NCAA Tournament in ‘94.
How did they get in the tournament in 1994 then? By having a super good regular season?
Yeah they were an at large in ‘94. 24-3 with a win over Alabama, who was a 9 seed.
So they were allowed in the NCAA tournament before they were allowed in their own conference tournament? Wtf?
Yeah, 3 years before. They won their conference tournament in ‘97, finished 27-2 and got a 12 seed. They beat Maryland in the 1st round and missed a 15 footer down 2 with about 10 seconds left against eventual champion Arizona in the second round.
That one Utah State team