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Selection Sunday is always full of surprises. And the 2024 edition did not disappoint.
As teams like NC State, Oregon and UAB won their conference tournaments to steal NCAA tournament bids, bubble teams had to worry a lot more than usual heading into Sunday. The bubble shrank by four bids over the course of conference tournament week as teams who otherwise wouldn’t have made the field.
Here are our winners and losers from this season’s men’s bracket unveiling.
WINNERS
The Mountain West
Only two conferences got more teams in the NCAA tournament than the Mountain West. Though the conference can quibble with the seeding placement of some of its teams, Selection Sunday was an overall victory for the MWC as other conferences got fewer teams in the tournament than they anticipated because of all the bubble thieves.
New Mexico clinched its spot in the NCAA tournament by winning the Mountain West title on Saturday and drew a No. 11 seed. Boise State, Colorado State and Nevada got in as No. 10 seeds, while San Diego State is the conference’s highest seed at No. 5. Utah State is a No. 8 seed.
Boise State was one of the last four teams in and has to play in Dayton early in the week, while the Rams and Wolf Pack can argue they’re under seeded. But being in the tournament is certainly better than missing out entirely.
Texas
The Longhorns didn’t have a great season. Texas went 9-9 in the Big 12 and finished eighth in the 14-team conference. The Longhorns never won three straight games during conference play and needed to win three of their last four regular-season games to get to .500 in the conference.
Texas seemed to be penciled in as either a No. 8 or No. 9 seed in the tournament ahead of Selection Sunday. Yet the Longhorns found themselves as a No. 7 seed in the Midwest Region and meet a team in either Virginia or Colorado State that had to play just two days before. If Texas wins that game, the Longhorns will likely face Tennessee and old coach Rick Barnes. That will be a marquee second-round game if it happens.
Gonzaga
Not long ago, Gonzaga wasn’t even a lock to make the NCAA tournament. An 11-5 start with no Quad 1 wins had the perennially contending Bulldogs sitting firmly on the early bubble in January.
Thanks to a 14-2 finish with wins over Kentucky and Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga safely played its way in as an at-large team, widely projected as a No. 7 seed after losing the WCC tournament final to the Gaels.
But the committee looked beyond Gonzaga’s slow start and lack of star power and appeared to lean on analytics in seeding the Bulldogs. They entered Selection Sunday ranked 15th in KenPom ratings and 17th in Net rankings, numbers that project them in the 4-5 seed range.
Now Gonzaga’s a No. 5 seed in a bracket with a hobbled No. 4 seed Kansas team and a No. 1 seed in Purdue with plenty of questions. Not a bad draw.
Unexpected conference champions
Sunday was the worst Selection Sunday for bubble teams in recent memory. Otherwise worthy tournament teams including St. John’s, Oklahoma and Indiana State were left out of the tournament thanks to a spate of bid-stealing upsets in conference tournaments.
Oregon defeated Colorado on Saturday to win the Pac 12 championship. NC State beat North Carolina to win the ACC title. And UAB won the AAC championship after an exit from favorite FAU early in the tournament. None of those championships were expected, and none of those teams would have made the tournament without securing their respective conference titles.
But now the Ducks, Wolfpack and Blazers are automatic bid winners in multi-bid leagues, meaning several prospective at-large bubble teams are out of luck. But that’s of no concern for the teams and fanbases that get to keep dancing.
North Carolina
The Tar Heels appeared to have a bead on the tournament’s final No. 1 seed when Tennessee bowed out of the SEC tournament in the quarterfinals. UNC had defeated Tennessee in the regular season and was projected just behind the Volunteers in the race for the top seed. A trip to the ACC title game appeared to be enough to secure it
But Saturday changed that dynamic. Iowa State wrecked Houston in the Big 12 championship, and North Carolina lost the ACC title game to 10th-seeded NC State. Iowa State ranked ahead of North Carolina in KenPom and NET rankings, raising whispers that Iowa State might actually come from behind to snag that last No. 1 seed. But Iowa State’s weak non-conference schedule appeared to do it in, and the Tar Heels secured the No. 1 seed in the West.
LOSERS
The Big East
It was a rough Selection Sunday for a conference that was considered one of the best in college basketball. The Big East’s bluebloods didn’t have to sweat at all; UConn, Marquette and Creighton each earned top-three seeds. But the conference’s bubble teams had a far worse day.
Seton Hall, Providence and St. John’s all entered Sunday with hopes of making the NCAA tournament. All three watched the selection show and didn’t see their names in the field of 68.
The Big East ended up with just its top three teams in the tournament as everyone else missed out even though Seton Hall finished just one game back of Marquette and Creighton in the conference standings and St. John’s went 11-9 in conference play. Expect a lot of public frustration from those in and around the conference over the next few days.
Fans in the state of Alabama
Alabama had three schools make the NCAA tournament as Alabama and Auburn easily made the field as No. 4 seeds and UAB knocked off Temple for the AAC tournament title on Sunday. But if any fans from those three schools were thinking about going to see their teams play in the tournament, they’re in for a long trip.
All three Alabama schools found themselves heading to Spokane, Washington for the first weekend of the tournament. Both Alabama and Auburn were sent to the Pacific Northwest because they were some of the lowest teams in the regional preference picking order and No. 12 seed UAB is heading to Spokane to play San Diego State. If the Blazers upset the Aztecs and Auburn beats Yale, we could have an all-Alabama matchup in Washington during the second round.
Iowa State
Iowa State made the biggest statement of conference tournament week with a 69-41 blowout of Houston in the Big 12 championship game.
The Cyclones entered the weekend as a projected No. 2 seed then took down a No. 1 seed in emphatic fashion to win the tournament title of the nation’s best conference. When North Carolina lost the ACC title game to an NC State team seeded 10th in the ACC, there was chatter that the Cyclones would overtake the Tar Heels as the NCAA tournament’s final No. 1 seed.
No such luck. Iowa State was announced on Sunday as a No. 2 seed and landed in arguably the worst spot of all the 2 seeds. To get through to the Final Four, the Cyclones face a difficult path that potentially includes a No. 3 seeded Illinois team that just put on a show en route to a Big Ten tournament championship. A matchup with UConn, the reigning national champion and No. 1 overall seed, would potentially await in the regional final.
Indiana State
The bubble pinch seemed destined to hurt Indiana State on Sunday and sure enough, the nation will be deprived of seeing the Sycamores and Robbie Avila in the NCAA tournament.
Indiana State lost to Drake in the Missouri Valley Conference title game a week ago and failed to secure the conference’s automatic berth. A normal-ish conference tournament week could have gotten the Sycamores into the tournament. With an NET ranking of No. 29 — the highest of any team that missed out on the tournament — the Sycamores had an analytics ranking to make up for their lack of marquee wins.
But as the bubble shrank and shrank over the weekend, it felt like a foregone conclusion that Indiana State would be on the outside looking in. And Selection Sunday simply confirmed it.
