No Division I men’s basketball team has ever missed the NCAA Tournament in the modern era after finishing its regular season undefeated.
So that should do it.
Yes, Miami University will be in the 2026 NCAA Tournament regardless of what the RedHawks do in next week’s MAC Tournament. Put another way, Travis Steele’s 31-0 team can lose its quarterfinal game in Cleveland to UMass by a billion points, and if Miami isn’t still in the NCAA Tournament, every member of the selection committee should resign on the spot.
I’ll keep this simple: Anybody in favor of giving an at-large bid to a power-conference school with 14 or 15 or 16 losses at the expense of group of dudes who just went 31-0 in the regular season, if Miami were to need an at-large bid, either works for a power conference or has strong ties to somebody running a bubble team.
The rest of us know what’s right.
As you surely understand by now, the RedHawks tried to schedule a whole bunch of quality opponents to increase the difficulty of their schedule — but most were reluctant to agree to a game for a variety of reasons, with the primary one being that Miami was returning four of the top five scorers from a team that won 25 games last season. In an era when roster-continuity from one successful season to another at the MAC-level is rare, Miami had it. Other programs knew it. And that is more or less how the RedHawks ended up with a strength of schedule that ranks 344th nationally, according to the NET.
That’s not good, obviously.
But, again, it’s also not entirely the fault of the RedHawks. And, either way, and I can’t emphasize this enough, THEY’RE 31-0! And, again no team has ever missed the NCAA Tournament in the modern era after finishing its regular season undefeated.
Miami won’t be the first.
The RedHawks remain No. 19 in Saturday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Duke is No. 1 for the 14th straight day. Duke, Michigan and Arizona have already locked-up No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, according to CBS Sports Bracketology. The fourth No. 1 seed will likely end up attached to either Florida or UConn, though Houston and Michigan are also technically in play.
