{"id":189055,"date":"2026-03-12T18:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189055\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:58:14","slug":"miami-ohio-chokes-away-undefeated-season-and-now-has-to-sweat-march-madness-bubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189055\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami (Ohio) chokes away undefeated season and now has to sweat March Madness bubble"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From perfection to sweating on Selection Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Miami (Ohio)\u2019s perfect season ended with a shocking 87-83 loss to eighth-seeded UMass in the MAC Tournament quarterfinals Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Redhawks blew an 11-point lead with 8:33 remaining, allowing a 29-14 run to close the game.<\/p>\n<p>Miami (Ohio) is now 31-1, yet there will be consternation while it spends the next 72 hours waiting to learn its NCAA Tournament fate.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN projected the Redhawks to be a No. 11 seed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/espn\/feature\/story\/_\/page\/bracketology\/ncaa-bracketology-2026-march-madness-men-field-predictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">entering the day,<\/a> which offered some wiggle room.<\/p>\n<p>While it may seem strange to think that a 31-1 team may be on the bubble, the MAC does not provide many quality wins and Miami (Ohio) did not play a tough non-conference schedule.<\/p>\n<p>The Redhawks rank 54th in the NET and 93rd in KenPom\u2019s metrics.<\/p>\n<p>There are those who argue that major-conference teams, despite having double-digit losses, should receive a bid over a team that did not face stiff competition en route to a 31-0 start.<\/p>\n<p>Leading that charge is former Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, who has vouched for the Tigers \u2014 now coached by his son, Stephen.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38758853\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/off-court-miami-defeated-massachusetts-123397243.jpg\" alt=\"Antwone Woolfolk, a Miami forward, on the basketball court after a game.\" class=\"wp-image-38758853\"  \/>Miami (Ohio)\u2019s undefeated season is over. AP<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we\u2019re selecting the 68 best teams, then Miami is going to have to win their tournament to qualify as a champion,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/02\/sports\/miami-ohio-ad-blasts-bruce-pearls-awful-disrespect\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pearl said recently<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause, as an at-large, they are not one of the best teams in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This led to to Miami (Ohio) athletic director David Sayler firing back at Pearl.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c@coachbrucepearl u are flat out wrong about @MiamiOH_BBall when u say we would finish last in the Big East,\u201d Sayler wrote on X. \u201cThe disrespect is awful and u should not be near a TV studio covering this sport when u show your true colors! Even slipped in a \u201cwe\u201d when talking about Auburn, nice work!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Miami would have helped its standing had it not choked away this quarterfinal.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38758867\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/guard-kjei-parker-5-celebrate-123397249.jpg\" alt=\"Massachusetts guard Marcus Banks (24) and guard K'jei Parker (5) celebrate their team's victory.\" class=\"wp-image-38758867\"  \/>UMass upset the top-seeded Redhawks. AP<\/p>\n<p>The Redhawks led, 69-58, with 8:33 remaining before their defense took the rest of the game off.<\/p>\n<p>The Minutemen rallied to tie the game at 71 roughly three minutes later, and Daniel Hankins-Sanford\u2019s layup with 29 seconds remaining gave UMass an 83-81 edge it didn\u2019t relinquish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From perfection to sweating on Selection Sunday. Miami (Ohio)\u2019s perfect season ended with a shocking 87-83 loss to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8294,33737,88351,123,125,124,20476,110,88513],"class_list":["post-189055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-college-basketball","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-2026","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-university","tag-sports","tag-university-of-massachusetts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}