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Saturday, April 20, 2024
Part 4 of our look back at Selection Sundays and NCAA Tournament bubbles over the last 35 years moves into a new decade with our review of 2000-04. Strength of schedule becomes king, Barry Hinson has his first notable snub, and Butler in 2002 and Utah State in 2004 beg the question of just how much do teams like them need to win to get a bid.
Part 3 of our reflection, research and review of Selection Sundays and the NCAA Tournament bubble over the last 35 years looks year-by-year at 1995-99. The stretch saw conference champions like Manhattan and Miami (Ohio) rewarded in 1995, a shift towards mid-pack majors as the 90s drew to a close but also surges by a trio of Midwestern leagues.
The second part of our review of bubble teams in and out in the NCAA Tournament over the past 35 years focuses on 1990-94. The span included those spurned during arguably the greatest NCAA Tournament of all, a 25-4 Dick and Tony Bennett led Wisconsin-Green Bay team left out, and a committee point of emphasis develops favoring conference champions.
We begin our review of the bubble over the years with the first five years of the 64-team NCAA Tournament era, 1985-89, including the first big snub (and blow-up) in the expanded tourney era, a 14 seed at-large team nearly making the Elite 8 and a conference going from a national champion one year to no team in the Big Dance at all the next.
As Selection Sunday 2020 approaches, Hoopville contributor Adam Glatczak is going to look back at 35 years of the bubble. Introducing his year-by-year look at at-large ins and outs since the NCAA tourney expanded to 64 teams in 1985
It was the second day of the new year, but also still bowl season, and a couple games went almost as long as a college football contest as Purdue and Minnesota went double overtime and UMKC and Seattle went even longer.
San Diego State remained undefeated and continued one of the season’s best early stories, gritting out a win over recent nemesis Fresno State on New Year’s Day. The Mountain West, American and Southern Conference were among the few busy to start 2020.
The first two months of the college hoops season have been fun for the upsets, yet not all is well. Scoring is going down again and there are too many players standing around on offense.
We conclude a league-by-league look at the biggest surprises of the season’s first two months, plus a recap of Saturday’s action including Kentucky outlasting Louisville, Cal State Fullerton stuns UCLA and UC Riverside’s improbable comeback.
We continue looking at some of the biggest surprises in each Division I conference through the season’s first two months. Plus, big news at Evansville, and Loyola (Md.) and Mount St. Mary’s win the only two games on the D-I docket Friday.
