3 NCAA Tournament snubs after March Madness bracket reveal
03/17/2025 10:05 AM
The biggest talking point on every Selection Sunday always surrounds which teams barely got into the 68-team NCAA Tournament field and which were just left out. That has never been more true this year, as fans of some of the country’s most notable teams went at it over the March Madness candidacies of their squads.
There were a lot of teams that had arguments to get in the field. Ohio State picked up a nice collection of wins, especially in the non-conference against Texas and Kentucky. However, the Buckeyes had too many bad losses against the likes of Pitt and a 21-point home defeat against Northwestern.
UC Irvine was everyone’s favorite mid-major that didn’t make the field after losing against a very good UC San Diego squad in the Big West title game. The Anteaters had the most wins away from home in the country including a road win over the Tritons, but a lack of quality non-conference victories did them in.
Those weren’t even near the top of the biggest snubs. Let’s dive into the three biggest, starting with an all-time shocker of an exclusion at No. 1.
No. 1: West Virginia Mountaineers
On Bracket Matrix, which tracks the predictions of 111 bracketologists during the lead-up to the selection, take a guess at how many of them had West Virginia safely in the field. If you guessed 111, or every single one of them, you were correct.
Well, they were all wrong. West Virginia was the team on the wrong side of the shocking inclusions of North Carolina and Texas on Sunday evening, and it’s pretty difficult to see how the selection committee even got there. Darian DeVries and company have better resume metrics than the Tar Heels and also have a 6-10 record in Quad 1 games, compared to 1-12 for UNC.
Do you want wins away from home? How about neutral-site wins against Gonzaga and Arizona in non-conference play and a road upset of Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse. West Virginia also pulled off a shocker against Iowa State during Big 12 play.
The selection committee chairman, North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham, talked after the reveal about how the injury to Tucker DeVries hurt the Mountaineers’ case. I’m sorry, but that is an absolutely ridiculous copout. DeVries got injured in December. It’s March!
West Virginia went through the entire conference slate in the second-best league in America without DeVries and came out with a winning record, including those wins against Kansas and Iowa State. West Virginia deserved to be in the field and it is one of the biggest stunners in recent memory that it is not.
No. 2: Indiana
Not to bash North Carolina here, but the Tar Heels are the eyesore in the field in terms of resume that a lot of these snubs will be looking at heading into the offseason. Indiana played a very difficult Big Ten schedule and still came away with four Quad 1 victories and, crucially, zero losses against the bottom three quadrants.
On top of that, Indiana’s best win is one of the best wins that any team on the bubble has: a road win against regular season Big Ten champion Michigan State on Feb. 11. The Hoosiers knocked off Purdue later in the month and seemed to have a lot of momentum heading into the selection, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Mike Woodson era going just a little bit longer.
Indiana’s quality metrics are not good — averaging out to 51.3, about 20 spots below North Carolina — so it’s easy to see how the committee got there. But the Hoosiers will feel, probably rightfully so, that they did enough on the court in the last month to get into March Madness.
No. 3: Boise State
Boise State was playing its best basketball at the end of the season, and Leon Rice and company certainly would have hoped that reaching the Mountain West title game would have been enough to crack the field. As it turns out, Saturday’s loss to Colorado State was a fatal one and the Broncos needed the trophy to make the field.
The Broncos had three Quad 1 wins, including very impressive victories against Clemson and St. Mary’s outside of conference play. However, the bad losses against Boston College (a Quad 4 loss) and Washington State (Quad 3) were too much to overcome.
Boise State’s case depends a lot on its recent form, which was admittedly good. Who would want to play against a team that has recently beaten San Diego State and New Mexico, both on a neutral floor? Not me. Now, the teams in the field won’t have to either during March Madness.
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