No Fortune Below .500: Dim Prospects For Teams With Losing League Marks

Arkansas, Mississippi State and West Virginia received 2023 at-large berths despite each of them compiling a record below .500 in a power conference. When will the Division I Committee and "impartial" media promoting leagues with which they have cozy business dealings realize a losing conference record probably should deny any team receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament? In 33 of the last 39 tourneys, the selection committee awarded at least one at-large berth to a squad with a sub-.500 mark in a top-caliber league. History held form, showing the committee pretty much simply wasted everyone's time.

In 2014 and 2015, Oklahoma State became the first school ever to receive an at-large berth in back-to-back campaigns after compiling a losing league record. Since numbers never lie, the cold and hard facts are that Virginia '84 is the only team with a sub-.500 conference mark to reach the Final Four. Three years later, Louisiana State became the last at-large team with a losing league mark to reach a regional final.

Maryland (#5 in 1986 and #4 in 2004) earned the two best seeds for an at-large squad with a losing conference record. Syracuse '18 is the only school in this sub.-500 category in the previous 14 tourneys to advance to the Sweet 16. In the same span, a total of 15 mid-majors reached a regional final or beyond. This striking number of at-large mid-level success stories doesn't even include recent Final Four clubs such as Virginia Commonwealth '11 (fourth-place finisher in Atlantic 10) and Wichita State '13 (second in Missouri Valley). How much more evidence does the committee require to give top-notch mid-majors a closer look rather than issuing handouts to underachieving members of power alliances?

Iowa State '92 is the only school receiving an at-large bid despite losing all of its conference road games. The Cyclones, dropping their seven Big Eight road contests by an average margin of 14.4 points, compiled the worst league mark (5-9) among at-large teams until Florida State '98 (6-10 in ACC with three losses by more than 20 points), Ohio State '19 (8-12 in Big Ten), Oklahoma '19 (7-11 in Big 12) plus West Virginia '23 (7-11 in Big 12).

A breakdown of conference recipients of basically unwarranted at-large bids include the ACC (16), Big Ten (12), Big Eight/Big 12 (12), SEC (seven), Big East (six) and Pacific-12 (two). After registering a 10-5 NCAA playoff mark from 1983 through 1987, teams in this suspect group went 30-48 since 1988 (ACC 12-14, Big East 1-5, Big Eight/Big 12 5-12, Big Ten 10-12, Pac-12 0-2, SEC 3-5). This year, at-large teams Arkansas, MSU and WV joined the following list of underachieving power-league "losers" given preferential treatment over more worthy mid-major conference members: