Auburn, Vanderbilt, St. John's, and Others Who Got Screwed in the 2026 Men's NCAA Bracket
The 2026 men's NCAA tournament bracket is here. The first game of the dance is less than 48 hours away. And most of you have already moved on to trying to decide which No. 14 seed is most likely to bust everyone's bracket.
I'm not ready to move on quite yet, though.
No, I need to get some things off my chest.
Over the course of this season, I've devoted probably 100,000 words and at least 25 hours of podcasting to the marathon that is bracketology.
By and large, I do agree with the bracket. But even I can't explain some of the decisions this selection committee made.
Did Illinois get screwed on geography more so than any other No. 3 seed in tournament history?
How did Vanderbilt end up landing on the No. 5 seed line?
And why Texas over Auburn?
Let's dive in.
Why Texas and Not Auburn?
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Believe me, I got my fill of this argument and then some over the course of the past week/month. Will be glad to not talk about this bubble ever again.
But the more I dug into Auburn's 16-loss resume, the more I liked what I saw.
Maybe it was some form of Stockholm Syndrome, but I don't love the message we're sending here in punishing the Tigers for scheduling too well.
Did you know that Auburn finished ahead of Texas in every single metric on the team sheets, with the exception of KenPom, where we can see that it's a virtual tie with Texas at +19.03 in 37th place and Auburn at +19.02 in 38th place?
Texas ended up with exactly a 0.00 Wins Above Bubble rating, while Auburn was at least slightly positive at a 0.40. (Better than SMU at 0.05, too, we might add.)
Auburn also won its head-to-head game against Texas. Granted, it was a six-point home win for the Tigers, but still. That happened.
But because Texas finished 18-14 while Auburn finished 17-16, the selection committee went with the Longhorns.
Cool. Cool.
Here's the thing about that record, though.
If you take away Texas' non-D1 win over Chaminade and all the home games against teams who ended up 275th or worse in the NETâAKA, the cream puff, cupcake, gimme games that any major conference team should winâTexas went 10-14 while Auburn went 16-16.
And if Auburn's "bad" losses to Mississippi State and Ole Miss are what ultimately did in the Tigers, why was the committee cool with Texas' losses to Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Arizona State?
Both resumes were hideous, but both did end up with six wins over the field, with Auburn's road win over Florida clearly out-classing anything the Longhorns brought to the table.
Because Auburn faced (and lost to) Michigan, Arizona, Houston and Purdue, though, they simply accumulated too many losses.
It's a shame to see, and it might be the beginning of the end of teams really challenging themselves in nonconference play.
Good Luck with that No. 3 Seed, Illini
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Illinois ended up at No. 10 overall on the selection committee's seed list, which is perfectly fair. I had them at No. 9 overall, thinking the committee would do what it usually does with the Big Ten championship game and just ignore it, leaving Purdue at 10 instead of promoting the Boilermakers ahead of both Michigan State and Illinois.
That's not the problem, though.
The problem is that the Illini have to go to Greenville for a likely matchup with No. 6 seed North Carolina in the second round.
While not exactly right down the road from Chapel Hill, that's a ridiculous advantage for the Tar Heels. It's about 200 miles from campus, and it's where they would have opened the tournament if they were the No. 1 overall seed. (See: Duke.)
But, fine, it happens. The "protected seeds" are only protected against extreme geographical advantages in the first round, not the second. It's possible they'll face VCU instead of North Carolina anyway.
Survive that opening weekend, though, and it's off to sunny Houston for a Sweet 16 matchup with...Houston.
Are you kidding me?
There will be talk of Florida getting shafted as the fourth No. 1 seed, needing to play a de facto road game against Houston if those two each survive their first three games. But Illinois was really placed behind the eight ball here.
At least they've shown they can beat quality foes on the road, winning at Purdue and Nebraska and also winning a "semi-away" game against Tennessee in Nashville. But that is a brutal draw.
How Are Vanderbilt and St. John's Only No. 5 Seeds?
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The selection committee says over and over and over again that all the results matter.
And yet, year after year, so few of the conference tournament games actually do.
St. John's getting a No. 5 seed I can understand. The Johnnies ended up at No. 18 overall, which is precisely where I had them.
However, I really struggled with that seeding, as we're talking about a team that swept both the regular season and conference tournament championships in one of the five biggest conferences, winning 19 of their last 20 games.
Teams who pull off that feat tend to get a No. 1 seed, not a No. 5 seed.
Despite destroying UConn in the Big East championship game, the Red Storm didn't seem to move an inch.
What's more, they got a draw from hell, needing to go through maybe the best No. 12 seed in Northern Iowa, maybe the No. 1 pick in the draft in Kansas' Darryn Peterson and the No. 1 overall seed in Duke...just to reach the Elite Eight, where a fourth showdown with UConn could be looming.
But Vanderbilt on the No. 5 seed line is straight up laughable.
The selection committee showed the Commodores quite a bit of respect in the Top 16 reveal, putting them at No. 15 overall. Since then, they lost a home game to Tennessee and a road game to Kentucky, but more than made up for it by winning at Tennessee before beating both Tennessee and Florida in the SEC tournament.
The 'Dores entered Selection Sunday top 14 in every single metric, and top nine in each of the three resume metrics, including Wins Above Bubble. After they beat Florida followed by Virginia losing to Duke, I scrubbed Vandy ahead of both the Cavaliers and Nebraska onto the back of the No. 3 seed line.
But they landed at 17 overall, one spot behind Arkansas after losing to the Razorbacks in the SEC championship.
It sure felt like the committee over-emphasized Sunday's championship games while under-emphasizing everything that happened earlier in those tournaments.
(At least Vanderbilt got a better draw than St. John's. Get past McNeese and the 'Dores will face maybe the weakest No. 4 seed in Nebraska and the weakest No. 1 seed in Florida, who they just pummeled the other day.)
The Forever Slighted Mountain West
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There will be a Mountain West Conference next season, but this was the final year of that conference as we've known it for some time. San Diego State, Utah State, Boise State, Fresno State and Colorado State are off to the reanimated Pac-12, with UC Davis, UTEP and Hawaii backfilling some of those spots.
But this is the way the MWC ends. This is the way the MWC ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
After sending at least four teams to the dance in each of the past four yearsâincluding a six-pack of Mountain West teams in 2024âit's a one-bid league for the first time since 2017.
Both San Diego State and New Mexico were in the conversation for possible at-large bids, with the Aztecs announced as the Third Team Out. However, those boats just took on too much water down the stretch, SDSU losing five of its last nine while UNM dropped six of its last 11.
By the time Utah State finished off San Diego State in the Mountain West championship game, we rather assumed it was going to be a one-bid league.
We did at least have high hopes that that singular bid would be wearing home jerseys in the first round game, with some thinking the Aggies could climb to a No. 7 seed.
Alas, we should have known better. The Mountain West always gets under-seeded, as the Aggies landed on the top of the No. 9 line.
On the plus side, they do draw what is probably the weakest of the No. 8 seeds in Villanova. The Wildcats had one win over a top 50 team and recently lost a key starter to a torn ACL, prior to their laugher of a loss to Georgetown in the Big East tournament. Perhaps Utah State actually wins a game for a change after getting immediately eliminated in 10 of its last 11 tournament appearances.
Still, that's a lot of disrespect for a regular season and conference tournament champion of a league that wasn't all that much worse than the Big East.
What Exactly Happened with the Play-In Games?
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Pray tell, why are Texas and NC State playing again?
These teams met in the 5th place game of the Maui Invitational, with the Longhorns winning 102-97 on those soft, soft rims in the Lahaina Civic Center.
And though the committee is allowed to relax principles as necessary to accommodate those First Four matchupsâas it sometimes becomes impossible to piece the puzzle together without breaking some ruleâthey so easily could have swapped the ACC teams, putting NC State against Miami (OH) and SMU against Texas.
Given those options, it's pretty clear that NC State drew the short straw here.
Instead of getting to face the 93rd ranked team on KenPom in the 31-1 RedHawks, they have to tangle with the 37th ranked Longhorns.
In addition to that, if they do beat Texas, they then need to fly all the way out to Portland to face BYU, while the Miami (OH)/SMU winner merely has to go from Dayton to Philadelphia.
That might be the most ridiculous part of all.
Both Greenville and Buffalo were available as Thursday sites, but the committee chose to put that play-in game in Portland.
Why, you ask?
Most likely because the No. 6 seeds in the Greenville and Buffalo pods are North Carolina and Louisville, and they were trying to avoid a possible ACC vs. ACC matchup in the first round.
Except they seem to have ignored the fact that NC State played Louisville and North Carolina as many times this season as it played Texas. Meaning they avoided one ossible rematch by guaranteeing a different one, and made the travel tougher on whoever wins that opener. Neat.
All other things being equal, it is supposed to be the top two at-large teams facing the bottom two at-large teams in Dayton, which is what they ended up doing. But come on.
