{"id":189786,"date":"2026-03-13T05:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189786\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T05:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:53:17","slug":"miami-ohio-must-be-in-the-ncaa-tournament-or-college-hoops-is-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189786\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami (Ohio) Must Be in the NCAA Tournament or College Hoops Is Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami (Ohio) RedHawks are going to the NCAA tournament<\/a>. There is no other acceptable outcome. It happens, or college basketball is broken beyond repair.<\/p>\n

They might be in the First Four in Dayton, which would probably be fine for a school located 56 miles away. But they\u2019re in. Don\u2019t waste any oxygen arguing against it.<\/p>\n

A No. 93 KenPom rating is immaterial. So is a No. 54 NCAA NET rating before Miami\u2019s loss to Massachusetts on Thursday in the Mid-American Conference quarterfinals<\/a>. If you must have a metric to fall back on, make it Wins Above Bubble<\/a>\u2014Miami was No. 33 heading into Thursday, which ranks ahead of several other tournament teams and those clustered on the bubble<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mostly, there is the win-loss record. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, no one-loss team has been omitted from the field. Nor has any two-loss team. At 31\u20131, the RedHawks are RedLocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An undefeated regular season has to matter.<\/a> Deserving mid-major representation has to matter. \u00a0 Otherwise, the committee is telling about 275 members of NCAA Division I that there is absolutely no point in the regular season\u2014the only thing that matters is a few weekends in March at a league tournament site.<\/p>\n

Unless the tournament selection committee wants to become the most unpopular group in America on behalf of some dysfunctional power program, it will do what\u2019s right Sunday. Not even a rash of bid stealing, the likes of which kept Indiana State out of the field in 2024, would justify snubbing Miami.<\/p>\n

The sport already caters too much to high-major underachievers, and there has never been less reason to do so than this year. The bubble is a mess, a pileup of teams that keep botching quality win opportunities, a lot of backsliding teams are going to get in as it is.<\/p>\n

With an 18\u201314 record and six losses in its last seven games, Indiana\u2019s own fans don\u2019t want to watch this team anymore<\/a>. They might have to. Same with Texas and SMU, which have both lost five of their last six. Missouri is on a three-game losing streak. Cincinnati blew an eight-point lead in the final 130 seconds against Central Florida on Wednesday, ending its tourney bid.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so bad that at 17\u201315, Auburn might have staggered into the Big Dance with a victory over Mississippi State on Wednesday. Woo-hoo.<\/p>\n

When it comes to team selection, the committee\u2019s work might already largely be over. Pending a few results in the Atlantic 10 and Mountain West, everyone else has pretty well played themselves in or out of the field of 68. Mostly out.<\/p>\n

Given the wreckage, there is no compelling reason to exclude Miami. Its schedule is undeniably weak, which is not the school\u2019s fault. Attempts to schedule better competition were rebuffed because the RedHawks were viewed as an all-risk, no-reward opponent by power-conference programs.<\/p>\n

The current scheduling game for many power-conference teams is to play a mix of games against each other and low-major opponents who stand no chance of pulling an upset. The teams in between don\u2019t get the opportunities for Quad 1 wins\u2014especially the good mid-majors.<\/p>\n

Miami isn\u2019t alone in being caught in scheduling no-man\u2019s-land. Belmont<\/a> played no power-conference opponents. Among fellow MAC schools, Kent State and Bowling Green also played none, while Toledo played one (Michigan State), as did Ohio (Louisville).<\/p>\n

When Miami got through the regular season unbeaten<\/a>, its tournament place was secure. Losing in the MAC tournament was not a shock, given the undefeated target the RedHawks carried through the latter stages of the season and their propensity for close games. Ten of their victories were by five points or fewer, and\/or in overtime. That included the last three games of the regular season, all of which were won by two points and came down to the final possession.<\/p>\n

One of the close calls was at home against UMass, This time around, the Minutemen had nine days off to rest and prepare. They hit Miami with a late 13\u20132 run to climb back into the game, then made more plays down the stretch of the victory.<\/p>\n

So the r\u00e9sum\u00e9 now reads 31\u20131. A single loss by four points on a neutral floor is not the end of the world, nor the end of an NCAA tournament dream. Miami will hear its name called on Selection Sunday.<\/p>\n

More College Basketball from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n

Listen to SI\u2019s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami (Ohio) RedHawks are going to the NCAA tournament. There is no other acceptable outcome. It happens,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-189786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189786","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=189786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}