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March Madness Snubs: Teams That Should Have Made the NCAA Tournament But Were Left Out
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The best team ever left out of March Madness was Maryland in 1974.
Lefty Driesell’s Terrapins were arguably the second-best team in college basketball that season. Unfortunately, they also had the misfortune of being the second-best team in the ACC in an era when only one team per conference was allowed in the NCAA Tournament. In the ACC’s case, that honor went to the ACC Tournament champion.
NC State, which needed overtime to beat Maryland for the ACC championship just to get into the NCAA Tournament, went on to win the national title, ending UCLA’s 7-year championship streak in the Final Four. But the exclusion of the Terps was so egregious that the NCAA decided to expand the bracket and allow conference teams to fill it starting the very next season.
Biggest March Madness Snubs
Even though the NCAA Tournament has expanded several more times over the years, there are still instances of deserving teams landing on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble on Selection Sunday. These are some of the most glaring March Madness omissions since March Madness expanded to its current 64/68-team format in 1985:
2008, 2010, 2011 Virginia Tech
Poor Seth Greenberg. The former coach-turned-ESPN-analyst has had his teams’ bubble burst more than anyone in NCAA history. In 2008, he called members of the selection committee “certifiably insane” for leaving out his 19-13 Hokies. But that wasn’t even the worst snub he endured at Virginia Tech. Two years later, the Hokies were left out again despite winning 23 regular-season games and finishing fourth in the ACC. Their 10 conference wins were the most for a team left out of the NCAA Tournament at the time. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Tech got left out of the field again in 2011, the year the field expanded from 64 to 68, despite going 21-11 with an upset of No. 1 Duke.
1990 Long Beach State
Greenberg’s battle with the bubble began long before he arrived in Blacksburg. He was an assistant to Joe Harrington in 1990 when Long Beach State suffered what might be the most painful March Madness snub of all. One that can be attributed directly to a television network rather than the team’s play on the court. The 49ers (22-8) finished second in the Big West behind eventual national champion UNLV. But they were passed over in favor of third-place UC Santa Barbara.
Why?
Because ESPN decided to schedule the conference tournament final at the same time that the NCAA selection show was airing on CBS. Committee chairman Jim Delany told the Los Angeles Times that the conflict “played havoc” on the bracketing process. It was decided that the only way Long Beach could get into the NCAA field was by beating UNLV to win the conference’s automatic bid. The 49ers led by 3 early in the second half until the Rebels ended their hopes by running off 15 straight points and taking command.
2024 Indiana State
The NCAA’s NET ranking system is an important element in the selection process. But as the Syramores learned in 2024, it’s not the only metric involved. Because if it were, Larry Bird’s alma mater would have made it into the field at No. 29. No team ranked among the top 30 in the NET had missed the tournament since the system came into existence in 2018. Until 28-6 Indiana State came along. The Sycamores put their postseason fate in the hands of the committee by losing to Drake by 4 points in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament final. That, combined with a bubble condensed by stolen bids in 4 other conference tournaments and a weak schedule that saw them go just 3-8 in Quad 1-2 games, combined to keep them out.
2016 South Carolina
The Gamecocks zipped through the nonconference schedule unbeaten and got off to a strong start in the SEC with wins against Auburn and Vanderbilt to improve to 15-0. At that point, they were the last remaining unbeaten in the country. Even though they eventually hit a rough patch midway through the conference schedule, they still finished third in the regular-season standings with a 24-7 overall record. But after a 1-point loss to Georgia in the opening round of the SEC Tournament, Frank Martin’s team was left out of the NCAA field and relegated to the NIT. If there’s any consolation, the Gamecocks made amends for the snub by reaching the Final Four in 2017.
1995 Davidson
The beauty of “Championship Week” is that it gives mid-major teams and conferences a moment in the spotlight while showcasing the intensity and emotion of March Madness by giving teams far off the NCAA bubble an opportunity to play their way into the bracket. On the flip side, it also has the potential to cause heartbreak for those deserving teams that get left out. That’s why so many mid-major teams, including Davidson, are on this list. The Wildcats were still a decade away from Steph Curry turning them into a household name. But they still had a future NBA player in Brandon Williams, who led them to a perfect 14-0 regular season in the Southern Conference. But neither that nor their 24-5 overall record were good enough to earn them an NCAA bid after they lost to Western Carolina in their conference tournament final.
2004 Utah State
The Aggies suffered a similar fate to Davidson. They went 25-2 in the regular season, 17-1 in the Big West. But they picked a bad time to have a bad day, losing a 1-point decision to 14-16 Cal State Northridge in the conference tournament semifinals. Utah State appeared ready to survive and advance to the championship game when it took a 2-point led with under a minute remaining. But Northridge’s Joseph Frazier made a 3-pointer with 29 seconds to play to pull off the upset. The Aggies’ .892 winning percentage is still the highest of any team left out of the NCAA Tournament.
2014 SMU
The Mustangs, who were in the American Athletic Conference and coached by Larry Brown at the time, were poised to celebrate on Selection Sunday. And for good reason. Even though they were upset by Houston in the conference tournament quarterfinals, they were still ranked No. 25 by the Associated Press and No. 23 in the Coaches poll with a 23-9 record. But the players and the large crowd that gathered at Moody Coliseum for their watch party were stunned when they didn’t see SMU in the bracket. Their RPI of 53 might have been the reason for the snub, even though Iowa, which had an RPI of 54, did get in.
2007 Syracuse
The Big East was still the original Big East and Syracuse was still a brand name program in 2007. But neither fact was able to help get the Orange into the Dance with its 22-10 overall record (10-6 Big East). Much to the displeasure of Jim Boeheim. Maybe it was an early-season loss to Drexel that kept Syracuse out. Maybe the committee was just tired of Boeheim’s constant whining and wanted to stick it to him. Either way, the curmudgeonly coach let everyone know what he thought about the snub by making the rounds of national television and radio shows to complain about it.
1992 Wisconsin-Green Bay
The Phoenix were 25-4 including an upset of Purdue and returned most of their key players – including future Virginia coach Tony Bennett – from a 1991 season that saw them come within a basket of beating Michigan State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. But even that wasn’t enough to earn a return ticket to March Madness. A possible reason for the snub is that UWGB wasn’t at full-strength in its Mid-Continent Conference semifinal loss to Eastern Illinois. Starting guard John Martinez didn’t play and was still sidelined by injury for the team’s subsequent NIT loss to Manhattan.
2024 Pittsburgh
It’s a documented fact that the ACC was down in 2024. But if the league was destined to only get four bids, then the Panthers should have been in line for one of them. They went 22-11, beat Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium and had regular-season champion North Carolina on the ropes until the final minutes of their ACC Tournament semifinal matchup. But no dice. What makes the snub all the more difficult to understand is that 23-10 Virginia – an opponent Jeff Capel’s team beat twice – was the team that got the bid instead of Pitt.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
