Top College Basketball Programs in Danger of Missing the 2026 NCAA Tournament
Kansas, Gonzaga and Michigan State have each been to at least 26 consecutive men's NCAA tournaments, and each one is sitting pretty for yet another trip to the dance.
But not every top college basketball program can say the same.
Using our annual "top programs" definition of any team that either A) appeared in the preseason AP Top 25 (indicating they were supposed to be good this season) or B) appeared in at least six of the past eight NCAA tournaments (indicating that we kind of expect to see them in the bracket every year), there sure are a lot of teams not at the top of their game.
In total, there are 10 "top programs" either narrowly on the right side of the bubble or out of the projected field altogether. And, in some cases, with no realistic hope of climbing back into the at-large conversation, barring a complete 180 from how they've played through the first 10 weeks.
Let's take a look at what has gone wrong for them, and what it would take to still secure a bid to the dance.
NET, RES and QUAL rankings current through the start of play Tuesday, but records and best wins/losses were updated to account for Tuesday's results.
Teams presented in alphabetical order.
Auburn Tigers
1 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Preseason AP No. 20 and six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 12-7, NET: 36, RES: 40.3, QUAL: 30.3
Three Best Wins: St. John's (in Las Vegas), vs. Arkansas, vs. NC State
Three Worst Losses: vs. Texas A&M, at Missouri, at Georgia
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: No. 10 seed
Say this much for Auburn: They've handled Bruce Pearl's sudden retirement in late September a whole heck of a lot better than Virginia handled Tony Bennett's sudden retirement the previous October.
Instead of copying the Cavaliers by sputtering to by far their worst season in more than a decade, the Tigers have been...a respectable team that bit off more than it could chew with its schedule.
In addition to a true road game against Arizona, Auburn played neutral-site games against Michigan, Purdue and Houston. They almost stunned the Cougars, but they lost each of the other three by at least 28 points.
No shame whatsoever in any of those four losses, but subsequently starting 1-3 in SEC play without yet drawing any of Florida, Alabama, Vanderbilt, Tennessee or Kentucky has put the Tigers in a perilous position—even with that rock-solid win over St. John's to their credit.
Those big games are coming fast and furious, though. They'll play at Florida this Saturday and at Tennessee next Saturday before hosting Alabama on the first Saturday of February. And unless they can pull off an upset in one of those games, they'll be saddled with (at least) 10 losses with a full month remaining in the regular season.
Digging out of that hole to reach the dance could be just about impossible. At any rate, the only team in the past four years to earn an at-large bid despite having at least 10 losses with four weeks left in the regular season was North Carolina's highly controversial inclusion last March.
Baylor Bears
2 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Seven of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 11-7, NET: 45, RES: 53.0, QUAL: 44.3
Three Best Wins: at Oklahoma State, Creighton (in Las Vegas), San Diego State (in Las Vegas)
Three Worst Losses: at Memphis, at TCU, St. John's (in Las Vegas)
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: Last Four In
Baylor's season started out promising enough in nonconference play. At any rate, those wins over Creighton and San Diego State in the Players Era Festival felt likely to go down as quality victories over tournament-bound teams. It also felt like the dynamic duo of Cameron Carr and Tounde Yessoufou was going to help them become a force.
While both of those tournament regulars will also show up on this list as teams not quite in position to dance, the first few weeks of Big 12 play have been a bit disastrous for the Bears.
Starting things out with a road loss to TCU was brutal, and they've repeatedly come nowhere close in their chances to get marquee victories, losing by 10 to Iowa State, by 22 to Houston, by 18 at Kansas and by 19 against Texas Tech.
The good news is opportunities abound. In mid-February, the Bears will play three in a row against Iowa State, BYU and Louisville. They'll also host Arizona at the end of February and will get another shot at Houston in early March.
But they'll need to, you know, actually win some of those games instead of continuing to get out-classed every time they run up against a top 25 foe.
Creighton Bluejays
3 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Preseason AP No. 23 and seven of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 11-8, NET: 56, RES: 61.3, QUAL: 50.7
Three Best Wins: at Villanova, vs. Butler, at Xavier
Three Worst Losses: vs. Kansas State, at Providence, Baylor (in Las Vegas)
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: Out (only in 1 of 81 projections)
After five consecutive years of riding Ryan Kalkbrenner to the NCAA tournament, the lack of a quality big man has been Creighton's undoing.
The Bluejays brought in Owen Freeman from Iowa, fresh off a season in which he averaged 17 points, seven rebounds and two blocks per game. But whether it's a product of his offseason knee surgery, poor conditioning or just a bad fit, it hasn't panned out in the slightest. Also losing Jackson McAndrew to a season-ending foot injury after just four games has left Creighton even more exposed up front, with virtually no reliable rebounding or shot-blocking presence.
As a result, they have been floundering, and that loss to Providence on Friday felt like something of an early final nail in the coffin of an eight-loss team that went 1-5 against top 200 foes in the nonconference and that won't have many opportunities to pick up quality wins the rest of the way in Big East play.
Now, yes, if Creighton sweeps Connecticut, that changes the calculus drastically, and I look forward to the "put that nail in your coffin" DMs if the Bluejays happen to stun the Huskies in either of those chances.
But if they end up losing both games against UConn, they may well need to win all 10 of the other games left on their schedule to have a remotely compelling case for a bid.
Kentucky Wildcats
4 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Preseason AP No. 9 and seven of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 12-6, NET: 28, RES: 37.3, QUAL: 27.7
Three Best Wins: at Tennessee, St. John's (in Atlanta), at LSU
Three Worst Losses: vs. Missouri, vs. North Carolina, at Louisville
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: No. 9 seed
Without a doubt, Kentucky's case for a bid is much stronger than it was seven days ago.
The Wildcats erased an 18-point deficit en route to a buzzer-beating win at LSU last Wednesday, and they followed it up with a 17-point comeback in a stunning road win over Tennessee on Saturday.
Not too shabby for a team readjusting to life without Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance, and they are certainly back in the projected field as things stand.
Had they lost either of those games, though, they'd be right on the bubble, probably projected for a play-in game in Dayton. And had they lost both games, they would be nowhere close to the projected field right now.
They also trailed by 10 in their quality win over St. John's, and had to come back from a nine-point first-half deficit in their home win over Indiana.
While that doesn't particularly matter for bracketology purposes, it does tell the story of a team that hasn't figured out how to play with intensity in the first half and that could be prone to some unsavory losses if that trend continues.
Of all the teams on this list, though, Kentucky does seem most likely to dance.
Marquette Golden Eagles
5 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 7-13, NET: 141, RES: 183.7, QUAL: 113.0
Three Best Wins: vs. Xavier, vs. Providence, vs. Valparaiso
Three Worst Losses: vs. Maryland, vs. Georgetown, at DePaul
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: Not in any projections
Most of the teams on this list reasonably could find their way into the dance.
Marquette is very much the exception to that rule at 3-13 vs. KenPom top 250 competition.
Even the three wins were borderline miracles, erasing a late six-point deficit before winning in overtime against Valparaiso, coming back at the end of both regulation and overtime to clip Providence and narrowly surviving by one against Xavier.
Shaka Smart has prided himself on neither losing players to, nor plucking players from, the transfer portal, but that just means he has no one to blame but himself for this mess of a team that cannot shoot to save its life, scoring 76 points or fewer in 12 consecutive games prior to Monday.
At this point, it's a question of whether Marquette might mess up someone else's dream of making the dance. The Golden Eagles' next five games are against Butler (twice), Creighton, Seton Hall and Villanova and could be a real dagger of a loss for any of those teams.
Of course, we're talking about a team with losses to DePaul and Georgetown that usually loses by 20 when it faces a legitimate foe. Probably don't need to worry about them handing anyone a bad loss.
Saint Mary's Gaels
6 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 17-3, NET: 31, RES: 32.7, QUAL: 35.3
Three Best Wins: Virginia Tech (in Bahamas), at San Francisco, at Davidson
Three Worst Losses: at Boise State, at Santa Clara, Vanderbilt (in Bahamas)
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: No. 9 seed
While a 17-3 record looks great at first glance, the unfortunate reality for Saint Mary's is that it has only played one game against a team definitely projected to dance, and it got slaughtered by 25 in that loss to Vanderbilt.
The good news is they picked up a lot of semi-decent wins in nonconference play. In addition to the wins over Virginia Tech and Davidson noted above, they beat St. Thomas, North Texas, Arkansas State, Wichita State, Florida Atlantic and Northern Iowa while building up the largest stockpile of Quad 3 wins (9-0) in the country.
Back in the olden days, we called that "Gaming the RPI," and it's still a beneficial approach to building a resume. Each Quad 3 win ends up being worth around +0.2 WAB, and those add up in a hurry as long as you don't suffer any bad losses.
That brings us to the other good news, which is that while they've only faced one sure-fire tournament team, neither of the losses to Boise State or Santa Clara was exactly devastating. Both sets of Broncos have fringe at-large hopes, and those could both end up being Quad 1 results.
As seems to be the case in more years than not, though, if the Gaels don't pick up a win over Gonzaga, their case for an at-large bid is going to be flimsy, at best.
Those two games—in Spokane on Jan. 31; in Moraga on Feb. 28—are Saint Mary's only remaining opportunities to pick up a Quad 1 win. Lose them both and it's probably "Auto Bid or Bust."
San Diego State Aztecs
7 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 13-4, NET: 46, RES: 40.3, QUAL: 51.7
Three Best Wins: at Nevada, vs. New Mexico, at Wyoming
Three Worst Losses: vs. Troy, Baylor (in Las Vegas), Michigan (in Las Vegas)
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: No. 11 seed
Let's start out with the good here, which is the fact that San Diego State's case for a bid is a whole lot better than it was seven weeks ago. Since starting out 3-3, the Aztecs have won 10 of 11 games, including picking up all three of their best wins noted above.
The problem, though, is that none of the wins was particularly great. At Nevada just barely qualifies as a Quad 1 result, and that's their only Quad 1 win in four tries. Meanwhile, vs. New Mexico arguably doesn't qualify as a win over a projected tournament team, with the Lobos smack dab on the bubble.
Combine that with a Quad 3 loss to Troy and the Aztecs are hanging out in Bubble City in spite of their 7-0 record in Mountain West play.
The big games left on the slate are at Utah State on Jan. 31, vs. Utah State on Feb. 25 and at New Mexico on Feb. 28. As NET rankings presently stand, all three of those should be Quad 1 opportunities.
But that's all they've got in that department, while two games against Grand Canyon, two games against Colorado State and road games against Boise State and UNLV loom as plausible 'bad' losses that could derail this quest for a bid in a hurry.
Texas Longhorns
8 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 11-7, NET: 41, RES: 63.7, QUAL: 40.7
Three Best Wins: at Alabama, vs. Vanderbilt, NC State (in Maui)
Three Worst Losses: vs. Mississippi State, Arizona State (in Maui), vs. Texas A&M
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: First Four Out
One year removed from controversially sneaking into the NCAA tournament with 15 losses, a 6-12 conference record and not a nonconference win worth mentioning, Texas might be well on its way to a pretty similar resume.
The recent wins over Alabama and Vanderbilt were fantastic, Quad 1A results, but the Longhorns were nowhere close to the at-large conversation prior to that pair of gems and arguably still don't belong in the field.
At any rate, that resume metrics average of 63.7 puts Texas in the unofficial "no fly zone," as no team with a RES average of worse than 57.5 has made the dance as an at-large team in the NET era of selecting the field.
That ranking can change in a hurry, though, and opportunity is at the Longhorns' doorstep.
They play at Kentucky on Wednesday before closing out January vs. Georgia, at Auburn and at Oklahoma. That's four Quad 1 games as things stand today, with the Kentucky and Auburn games representing more opportunity for Quad 1A statements.
Go 2-2 in that stretch and the Longhorns probably enter February narrowly in the projected field. Even at that point, though, they would merely be 5-9 against the top three Quadrants, which is no bueno.
UCLA Bruins
9 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Preseason AP No. 12 and six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 13-6, NET: 44, RES: 59.3, QUAL: 39.7
Three Best Wins: vs. Purdue, at Washington, at Penn State
Three Worst Losses: California (in San Francisco), at Ohio State, at Wisconsin
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: Out (only in 26 of 81 projections)
Let's not bury the lede here: UCLA picked up a massive home win over Purdue on Tuesday night.
Prior to that, however, the Bruins were 1-6 vs. KenPom top 75 competition. And even in that lone 82-80 victory over not-tournament-bound Washington, they darn blew what was a 16-point lead with less than five minutes remaining.
Not exactly what anyone was expecting from the preseason No. 12 team in the land, right?
We were willing to give the Bruins a mulligan for the loss to Cal, in which Tyler Bilodeau did not play and Donovan Dent was playing on an injured leg. But they've also since been smoked by Iowa, Ohio State and Wisconsin, all of whom are bubble teams in their own right.
Skyy Clark (who scored 25 in the win over Washington) missed the games against Ohio State and Wisconsin with a hamstring injury, and the Bruins shot an absurdly uncharacteristic 4-for-31 from three-point range in the consecutive losses to the Hawkeyes and Badgers. (They were shooting 39.8 percent and averaging 8.1 makes per game prior to those duds.)
At a certain point, though, you have to stop trying to explain away losses with asterisks and just accept that maybe this team simply isn't all it was cracked up to be.
Buckle up for mid-February, though. UCLA plays at Michigan on Valentine's Day, plays at Michigan State three days later and hosts Illinois four days after that. Whiff on all three and there might not be a path to the dance.
Wisconsin Badgers
10 of 10
"Top Program" Eligibility: Preseason AP No. 24 and six of last eight NCAA tournaments
Resume: 13-5, NET: 39, RES: 34.0, QUAL: 37.7
Three Best Wins: at Michigan, vs. UCLA, at Minnesota
Three Worst Losses: TCU (in San Diego), Villanova (in Milwaukee), BYU (in Salt Lake City)
Current Bracket Matrix Projection: No. 9 seed
Wisconsin only has one win over a team projected to make the NCAA tournament, but it was one heck of an only win, going on the road and knocking off otherwise undefeated Michigan.
That instantly turned the Badgers' season around. We didn't even have them listed as an "Also Considered" team in our bracketology two weeks ago, and we typically include a total of about 15 non-tournament teams in that tier, which tells you just how far gone 9-5 Wisconsin was at the time.
But now with that marquee win amid their four-game winning streak, it's more like 15 teams separating the Badgers from the bubble cut line in a good way. They are presently projected for a No. 9 seed and are also projected to extend that winning streak to eight games with Penn State, USC, Minnesota and Ohio State on tap.
Still, with only one win over the projected field—and only one win in six tries vs. Quad 1—this is the type of resume that could take on water in a hurry if any bad losses come along. And for as much as this team relies on the three ball with nearly 31 attempts per night, it's a little surprising Wisconsin hasn't launched itself into a bad loss yet this season.
Conversely, the Badgers still play at Illinois and at Purdue, with home games against Michigan State and Iowa in between, so there are plenty of opportunities left to add to that one phenomenal victory.
