Learn More About The Ultimate College Hoops Experience, Sending You To The Final Four<\/a><\/p>\nOn Sunday, the NCAA Selection committee rewarded them with a play-in game against SMU, with the winner playing No. 6 Tennessee in Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the CBS broadcast, the Redhawks were two spots away from not making the NCAA tournament. So, drawing a play-in game in Dayton, only two hours away from campus, should be seen as a big win for the MAC team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In terms of the MAC, with Akron winning the tournament, they will be the second representative of the conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If VCU had not won their conference tournament, they would not have made the field as a \u2018bubble\u2019 team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe Next Year, Auburn<\/p>\n
But, one of the most nauseating discussions was about the Auburn Tigers and their 17-16 record, which led to an overwhelming discourse on social media. The obvious answer, to those who follow college basketball, was to keep the Tigers at home. Even a last-second push from the Auburn communications department Saturday wasn\u2019t going to help this squad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was pretty simple, I imagine. For all the tough teams they faced this past season, their record did not provide enough evidence that this was a team that deserved to dance. The Tigers didn\u2019t really help their case in the SEC Tournament, blowing a 10-point lead in the loss to Tennessee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And no, there was no amount of politicking that Bruce Pearl could do for his son that would convince the committee they were worthy of a spot. In a way, Steven Pearl was put into a no-win situation from a perception standpoint when his father decided to retire before the season started.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, one of the most talked about teams in the sport will be sitting at home, with their 16 losses being the only reason why.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Would we have been discussing a team this much regarding the \u2018bubble\u2019 if they weren’t from the SEC, or the head coach having the last name \u2018Pearl\u2019? Who knows, but maybe the Tigers can reload next season and find their way back into the Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other Bubble Teams. Missouri Won’t Travel Far, Arkansas Heads West<\/p>\n
In other interesting moves, Missouri snagging the No. 10 seed, and getting to play in St. Louis, should be seen as a massive win for the Tigers, given they were on the bubble and will play 2 hours away from campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, it was Arkansas cutting down the nets in Nashville with the SEC Tournament win. Its reward? They will head out west to Portland, with a potential matchup against Wisconsin waiting. John Calipari had this to say following the championship about what he thought the NCAA selection committee would do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Now my guess is, we\u2019ll play Wednesday. Hopefully they\u2019ll say \u2018Let them rest till Friday\u2019. Not a chance” “Let\u2019s see where they seed us.. Does this matter. I don\u2019t know.”<\/p>\n
Clearly, the committee wasn\u2019t too worried, with Arkansas now playing Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for the final eight teams that were considered, it looks as though the selection committee got it right, with SMU and Texas getting into the tournament over Oklahoma and Auburn, though I could make a case for the Sooners getting in.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, the bubble was not as strong this season compared to year’s past, and it showed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What do you say? Let me know what you think about the NCAA Tournament seeding. Email me at Trey.Wallace@OutKick.com with your best take.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami (OH) earned a play-in spot while Auburn was left out of the NCAA Tournament. Do conference tournaments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-193200","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\/193200","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=193200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}