The team that went undefeated in the regular season, racked up more victories than anyone but Duke and Arizona — and fewer losses than any team at all — is anything but your run-of-the-mill basketball behemoth.
In fact, Miami (Ohio), despite that 31-1 record and maybe because of a little chip that’s been placed on its shoulder, is one of those plucky underdogs that makes the NCAA Tournament what it is.
Welcome to March Madness with a twist.
While Duke (32-2) took the overall top seed on Selection Sunday, with Arizona (32-2), Michigan (31-3) and defending champion Florida (26-7) also on the top line, the RedHawks barely scratched their way into the bracket.
They are an 11 seed and have to play a First Four game against SMU on Wednesday. But after all the debate and hand-wringing that came with their single loss last week, which immediately turned them from sure thing into bubble team, they now enjoy the same privilege as the other 67 teams in the field.
They will have a chance to win and advance, with no selection committee, bracketologists or former coaches-turned-TV experts deciding their fate.
“I was very confident,” Miami forward Eian Elmer said. “I think it’s hard to leave a team that’s 31-0 in a regular season out. It just wouldn’t look right for the sport, diminishing something like that, something that’s very rarely done.”
After the First Four, the full slate of games begins Thursday and Friday, with the national champion set to be crowned in Indianapolis on April 6.
The chair of the selection committee, Keith Gill, tried to explain how Miami of the lightly regarded Mid-American Conference ended up where it did. The RedHawks, he said, were not the last of the 37 at-large teams slotted into the field.
But, he said, they were ranked last of those 37 teams because once they got in, they were compared against other teams close to them, and things like their 339th-ranked strength of schedule and zero wins (in fact, zero games) against top-caliber, or Quadrant 1 opponents worked against them.
Other factors worked for them, including having the nation’s second-ranked scoring offense, along with a “strength of record” in the top 30 and “wins above bubble” in the top 40 (each of those statistics would take a small pamphlet to explain).
“They have some really strong resume metrics that show their accomplishments,” Gill said.
For what it’s worth, Miami is an 8½-point underdog against SMU and a 2000-1 long shot to win it all, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.
Unlikely, indeed, but still better odds than the much-cited 9.2 quintillion-1 odds a person has of filling out a perfect bracket.
Conference tournaments
The favorite to win the national championship, according to BetMGM, is Michigan, which was listed at 13-4 shortly after the bracket came out, just a tad ahead of Duke, which was 10-3.
The Wolverines took a mini-hit in the seedings, dropping a notch to overall No. 3 after an eight-point loss to Purdue in the Big Ten title game. The Boilermakers are a 2 seed instead of a 3 with the win, heading to St. Louis to play tournament first-timer Queens.
The conference title did not do as much for St. John’s, which stayed where it’s been predicted most of the season — as a No. 5 — even after a 20-point win over UConn for the Big East title.
Last year, St. John’s became the sixth team coach Rick Pitino had led to the tournament. This year, the Johnnies go again but they must travel to San Diego to face Northern Iowa in the first round.
“I said, ‘Don’t take it as a negative,’” Pitino said. “I’ve had teams go to a Final Four that first had to go to Portland and then Arizona from Louisville.”
