No Fortune Below .500: Quick Exit Looms For ACC 8-10 Southern Methodist

A year ago, Mississippi State (8-10 in SEC) became the first school ever to receive an at-large berth three consecutive campaigns despite compiling a record below .500 in a power conference. The Bulldogs lost all three of those playoff openers. 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 36 of the last 42 tourneys, the selection committee awarded at least one at-large berth to a squad with a sub-.500 mark in a top-caliber league. If history holds form, the committee pretty much simply wasted everyone's time by awarding SMU at at-large bid (20-13 overall; 8-10 in ACC).

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?

A breakdown of conference recipients of basically unwarranted at-large bids include the ACC (17), Big Ten (12), Big Eight/Big 12 (12), SEC (14), 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 32-55 from 1988 through 2025 (ACC 12-14, Big East 1-5, Big Eight/Big 12 5-12, Big Ten 10-12, Pac-12 0-2, SEC 7-18). This year, SMU joined the following list of underachieving power-league "losers" given preferential treatment over more worthy mid-major conference members: