Five Snubs As College Basketball’s March Madness Bracket Unveiled
The 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed on Selection Sunday, setting up a number of fun matchups that ensure another year of March Madness.
Speaking of madness, Sunday didn’t provide all sunshine and rainbows. While 68 teams were given an opportunity to fight for the National Championship, there were some teams who may have been deserving that were not.
Though there were 36 at-large bids available, these five teams failed to snag them prior to the start of the 68-team tournament.
Here are five teams who were snubbed on Selection Sunday:
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
There really isn’t any argument that the Scarlet Knights were the biggest snub in 2023. The reason for their burst bubble? An unprecedented amount of Quad-3 losses (four) and an injury to forward Mawot Mag, which severely hampered them down the stretch. Rutgers finished its pre-NIT season at 19-14, playing a soft non-conference schedule that ranked 342nd of 363 teams. That has been the MO since head coach Steve Pikiell took the reins in 2016.
Perhaps that changes moving forward.
Clemson Tigers
Clemson is a really solid team. They’re also really unspectacular. The Tigers finished 23-10 overall and 14-6 in the historically shaky ACC this season, which probably didn’t help their chances. Of the top six finishers in the conference, Clemson is the only one to not make the tourney.
Oklahoma State Cowboys
The argument for and against Oklahoma State is very simple.
The Cowboys finished seventh in the Big 12 and had an unremarkable record of 18-15. They also played in the best conference in college basketball and had six Quad-1 wins.
North Carolina Tar Heels
The Tar Heels were ranked No. 1 in the preseason. Yikes.
Returning four starters from last season’s NCAA tournament runner-up team, UNC posted a 20-13 record and managed just one Quad-1 win all season. Beating up on Quad-3 and Quad-4 teams weren’t enough to help the perennial blue blood sneak their way into the tournament.
Vanderbilt Commodores
Jerry Stackhouse is not going to be very happy with this outcome.
The insanely fiery head coach will lead Vanderbilt into the NIT Tournament, despite reaching the SEC tournament semifinals before losing to Texas A&M. The Commodores were just 20-14 overall and finished 81st in the NCAA’s NET rankings, but had five wins over Quad-1 competition — more than at-large bids Pittsburgh, Nevada, Providence and Arkansas.
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