It didn’t take long for controversy to brew on Selection Sunday when North Carolina made the March Madness 2025 bracket, getting sent to Dayton for a First Four game despite possessing a 1-12 record in Quad 1 games this season.
Texas, Xavier and San Diego State were the other three teams who cracked the tournament committee’s “Last Four In” list, with the Longhorns’ appearance adding to the SEC’s record-setting year where they sent 14 teams into the March Madness field.
The Post breaks down the major snubs from the NCAA Tournament, including West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio State and Boise State — which appeared on the committee’s “First Four Out” list.
Ohio State (17-15)
Guard Bruce Thornton emerged as one of the best in the country, averaging 17.5 points and 4.5 assists per game in the regular season.
As a team, the Buckeyes shot 37.2 percent from 3-point range — third-best in the conference.
But they’re soft inside defensively and collected a 6-11 record in Quad I games this season, and their final game before Selection Sunday was a brutal loss to Iowa in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
The Hawkeyes fired head coach Fran McCaffrey days later after their season-ending loss, but his final win with the program popped the Buckeyes’ bubble case.
Indiana (19-13)
Mike Woodson and the Hoosiers are parting ways after the season, and earlier this month, it appeared that he might be leaving too soon — as he expressed on Senior Day.
After a five-game midseason losing streak, the Hoosiers won five of their last seven regular-season games yet fell short of reaching the Tournament for the third time under Woodson.
They lost to Oregon in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament and went just 4-13 in Quad I games.
There weren’t many expectations for the Mountaineers and first-year head coach Darian DeVries this season — as they were picked 13th in the Big 12 preseason poll — but that changed when they toppled then-No. 3 Gonzaga in November.
Transfer Javon Small averaged 18.6 points entering Friday, and WVU has the second-best scoring defense — and the best 3-point defense — in the conference.
Still, it didn’t matter when the bracket was announced.
Boise State (24-10)
The Broncos missed out on a fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament berth despite closing out the regular season with nine wins in 11 games.
They had offensive balance — six different players average at least 6.2 points — and are particularly good at protecting the defensive glass.
Wake Forest (21-11)
Carried by All-ACC First Teamer Hunter Sallis, who averaged 18.0 points per game in the regular season, the Demon Deacons’ identity came on the defensive side of the ball.
They forced 13.4 turnovers per game in the regular season — second-most in the conference.
On the flip side, they shot just 29.2 percent from 3-point range — worst in the ACC — and a fourth-place finish in the conference’s regular season standings, and a loss to UNC in the quarterfinal of the conference tournament, wasn’t enough to generate another cameo in the bracket.
