In all the chaos of March, it’s easy to forget that, for every bid to the Big Dance, a further five teams see their journeys end. Even with the proliferation of postseason tournaments, seeing possibly an unprecedented 148 teams in postseason play, there are still over 200 squads who don’t get a chance.
That’s why we put together a bracket for the teams on the opposite end of the spectrum, based on an idea I1 had last year heading into the 2021 tournament - because there are unique stories and worthwhile lines to follow at every level of the sport, not just at the highest echelons, and it’s worth celebrating those as much as it is any other.
Besides, there’s something delightful about giving teams that have had hellish runs a chance to still play for something. The inverse of the madness we see every March, approaching it from the other side of the coin. This is March Badness.
We’ll introduce you to your field of 68, help you learn a little more about the flipside of the teams you saw on Sunday’s selection show, and let you know how you can get involved in the Badness. Maybe next year we’ll make an actual show of it ourselves.
The Bracket
Here’s how we picked the bracket: think of everything the Selection Committee takes into account for the NCAA Tournament and flip it upside down. Like them, we awarded an autobid to all 32 Division I conferences, but instead of giving them to the conference tournament champions, we gave them to the teams that finished in last place. Next, we bestowed 36 at-large bids. While the Selection Committee looked for the best résumés and metrics in determining their field, we - naturally - looked for the worst. The lower you are in NET and KenPom, the higher your seed here. Losing to a non-D1 team could raise you a seed line or two, while beating a top-100 team could drop you just as much. In addition, you’ll notice that we followed all of the other NCAA bracketing rules; rematches were avoided in the early rounds, high seeds from the same conference are not in the same region, and so on.
Finally, to make sure we were getting the worst of the worst, we laid down a few more ground rules. First, we removed every team still transitioning from a lower division. We agree that Bellarmine should have been in the NCAA Tournament, but on the flip side, bashing St. Thomas for having a bad team in their first year up from Division III just seemed like poor form. Next, we removed every team that had a winning record in conference play. The SWAC might be the worst conference in D1, but if Alabama A&M is winning more than they’re losing, they’ve proven they don’t belong here. On a similar note, we decided that no more than half of any given conference could be selected for this tournament; we didn’t have to use that rule this year, but it was still a thing we considered. Last but not least, if you made it to the title game of your conference tournament - if you were just one win away from the real Big Dance - you played yourself out of March Badness. Here, we said goodbye to Coppin State, who went on a miracle run to the MEAC final.
The Field
Now, as with the actual tournament, we have an Early Eight2 - so we should get started with that. Much like the actual tournament itself, the 16-seed play-in teams are the weakest autobids, while the 13-seed play-ins are the weakest at-large selections.
The Early Eight
In the first matchup, it’s [16] Minnesota taking on [16] West Virginia in the IUPUI regional, with the winner advancing to play the Jaguars. The Golden Gophers finished 13-17, 4-16 in the Big Ten to claim the league’s autobid - but exceeded the expectations many had set for first-year coach Ben Johnson. The Mountaineers struggled in an absurdly strong Big 12, but are arguably the strongest team in the field - any win notched in conference play is an achievement against a field that deep (three top-10 teams on KenPom, eight inside the top 50).
Our other set of 16s sees [16] Georgia take on [16] NC State. Similar stories here - the Wolfpack slid to the bottom of the ACC, going just 4-19 over their last 23, but with just two seniors on the roster, the future is bright in Raleigh. Georgia dismissed head coach Tom Crean after a tough season that saw the Bulldogs bring home a 6-26 record, but two of those wins were against NCAA Tournament at-large teams Memphis and Alabama.
In the 13s, it’s [13] Binghamton vs. [13] Grambling State - the Bearcats notching their best record since the 2010 season and Grambling powering their way to their seventh straight 10-win season.3 On the other side of that coin, it’s an HBCU-dominated matchup as [13] South Carolina State battles [13] Prairie View A&M - MEAC vs SWAC, Bulldogs vs Panthers. South Carolina State turned a 1-17 season last year into 15-16 this year (and .500 during regular season play!) under the guidance of Tony Madlock, while Prairie View took on the nation’s toughest out-of-conference schedule and did so with aplomb.Â
Now that we’re past them, let’s get into the full bracket.
IUPUI Region
In our upper-left quadrant, we have the IUPUI Region, headlined by our top overall seed, [1] IUPUI. The Jaguars lost six players to season-ending injuries, and combined with other issues throughout the program, found themselves playing with just six players for a month, and just five for their last two games. Despite it all, they managed to eke out a win against Robert Morris, though their metrics keep them at the very bottom of the pile. They’ll get the winner of the aforementioned [16] Minnesota/West Virginia play-in. The eight-nine in this one is [8] Northwestern State and [9] Alabama State. The Demons had a solid campaign in the new-look Southland and the Hornets rebounded nicely to have their best campaign since 2016.
Our next foursome sees [5] Southern Miss take on [12] Central Arkansas. The Eagles won just seven games and just three of their last 27, but did so with a young team that can only fly higher from here, while the Bears doubled their win total from last season and hung one of their better campaigns since moving to Division I in 2007. They’ll be joined by [4] Holy Cross and [13] Maryland Eastern Shore. The Crusaders, a longtime friend of the Badness, notched their best season in three years, while UMES didn’t play last year, but still bounced to double-digit wins this year, hence their slide on the seeding.
The bottom half of this region sees [6] Bucknell and [11] St. Francis Brooklyn. The Bison have slumped after a few years atop the Patriot League, and the Terriers are an original member of the Never Made the Tournament Club - but they’re in here. [3] Incarnate Word and [14] San José State join them, with the Spartans having given Fresno State a damn fine scare in the Mountain West Tournament, but coming up just short of their first conference tournament victory since 2011.
Our last set of four is [7] NJIT and [10] Denver - the Pioneers lifted from the Summit League basement for the first time in a couple years, and the Highlanders notching their first double-digit-win campaign since 2019. They’ve got a pairing with [2] Columbia and [15] Western Carolina. Columbia rebounded from a year off with a four-win campaign to pop them into the 2 seed, while the Catamounts gave the SoCon hell - including a win over conference champion Chattanooga - but didn’t quite make up the difference, finishing last in the conference.
Mississippi Valley State Region
Our bottom-left quadrant is the MVSU Region, headlined by - you guessed it - [1] Mississippi Valley State, who rebounded from one of the worst seasons in the history of the sport to rise from the bottom of the table. Though they still came home last in the SWAC, there’s reason for hope in Itta Bena. They get [16] Quinnipiac, who almost became the darlings of the MAAC before losing to eventual tournament champs Saint Peter’s in the semifinals. Opposite them, it’s [8] Milwaukee and [9] Saint Francis (PA). The Panthers landed superstar recruit Patrick Baldwin Jr. but still found themselves near the bottom of the Horizon, while SFU continued their push to regain the mojo they had a couple seasons back.
Longtime bottomfeeder [5] Chicago State lands here - as an at large! -Â in their best season since 2015 under first-year head coach Gerald Gillion. Though the Cougars find themselves without a conference to call home next year, the future is bright in the Windy City, as a team that had won just seven games in the three seasons prior matched that total this year. They get [12] Cal Poly, out of the Big West, as John Smith continues to rebuild there. [4] Omaha, almost our Summit bid winner, will get the winner of the [13] Binghamton/Grambling play-in to round out this grouping.
[6] Northern Arizona reclaims the autobid in a tight Big Sky that sends four teams to Badness. They’re rewarded with [11] Central Michigan, who kept it close against regular season champion Toledo in the MAC Tournament, but came up one point shy of the upset. [3] Fairleigh Dickinson, who actually managed to beat Northeast Conference favorite Wagner, rounds out this grouping with [14] Little Rock, winners of the Sun Belt autobid.
Finally, [7] CSUN is an at-large selection from the Big West; coaching turmoil there has left the program in an uneasy state, but they’ve managed to float above the floor a bit. They get [10] McNeese out of the Southland. Opposite them, we’ve got [2] Eastern Illinois, perhaps underseeded as they finished 356th in NET and 357th in KenPom out of 358 Division I teams. They’ll face [15] South Florida, the American autobid.
Delaware State Region
Our upper-right bracket has [1] Delaware State hosting, as the Hornets come into the tournament as one of just two D1 teams without a win against a fellow D1 school. They’ll get the winner of [16] Georgia/NC State. [8] UTSA and [9] Sacred Heart, at-large selections from Conference USA and the Northeast, round out the group.
Following up that sector it’s [5] Idaho State, who were Northern Arizona’s deepest competition for the Big Sky autobid, taking on [12] Stetson, the Hatters having slid a little bit in the revamped ASUN and claiming the autobid as a result. [4] Green Bay and [13] Eastern Michigan provide some Upper Midwest flair to this region, the Phoenix having come home 11th in the Horizon and the Eagles just escaping the bottom of the MAC.
[6] Houston Baptist rides a 149-144 4OT marathon into their game with OVC middleman [11] SIU Edwardsville - the Cougars having slid into the OVC tournament by the tiniest of margins. A rebuilding [3] Charleston Southern hit the bottom of the Big South and are rewarded with a [14] Duquesne team that had a rough year of it, coming home bottom of the Atlantic 10.Â
MAC autobid winner [7] Western Michigan gets WAC member [10] UTRGV, as the Vaqueros come home third-from-bottom in conference play and are rewarded with a hot-and-cold Broncos team. They’re paired with our highest-seeded at-large selection in [2] Arkansas-Pine Bluff out of the SWAC, and [15] Oregon State, the power conference team with the fewest total wins, notching just three.
Lamar Region
In our final quadrant, it’s [1] Lamar hosting - the Cardinals are the other team to have not managed a D1 win this year. For their troubles, they’re given one of the other two teams not to win a conference game in Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown squad, who are stuck with him despite the terrible season because they extended him after last year’s miracle Big East Tournament title run. [8] Robert Morris and [9] Hampton come from the Horizon and Big South, respectively, to give us our eight-nine contest here; the two teams are low-end contenders in conferences that tend to be multi-bid leagues year-in-year-out here at Badness.
Colonial autobid winner [5] William & Mary gets [12] Sacramento State. The Hornets had a tough year rebounding from an unexpected coach retirement mere days before the start of the season, while William & Mary yet again failed to secure their first NCAA Tournament bid. [4] Central Connecticut floats up to this seedline despite claiming the NEC autobid, and for that are granted a game against the winner of the [13] South Carolina State/Prairie View play-in.Â
It’s [6] American out of the Patriot League to take on a resurgent [11] Idaho squad that notched eight more wins than they did in 2021, knocking off Summit League champion South Dakota State in the process. Speaking of the Summit, their autobid here goes to [3] North Dakota, opposing a rebuilding [14] Pepperdine team that landed three freshmen on the all-WCC team.
Our last set of four is [7] Evansville, MVC basement babes, taking on the Skyhawks of [10] UT Martin - a team that lost their entire squad from last year in the wake of the tragic death of coach Anthony Stewart. Opposing the winner of that game will be our winner of [15] Northeastern, Colonial at-large selection expected to compete for the league title, and [2] Maine, our America East bid winner and long-time stalwart of the Badness.
Join the Badness!
So…there you have it. 68 teams, all of them…pretty bad. It’s not about the records, though. It’s about the storylines. It’s highlighting programs you may not know about, showcasing teams that have accomplished amazing things despite adversity - and those that haven’t. It’s celebrating, from top to bottom, our amazing sport, and acknowledging that every level of it deserves recognition and celebration.
If you’d like to join the Badness, follow us on Twitter and vote in our upcoming polls to help determine which team is the baddest of them all. Voting for each round will run simultaneously with the corresponding round of the NCAA Tournament, so join us tomorrow for the first two matchups of the Early Eight!
(David)
Not an original thought, but c’mon, there are eight teams in there. Calling it the First Four is lazy.
Grambling State was the last team in the field. Pacific, Radford, Albany, and UIC were the First Four Out. Send them to March BadNIT.