Top College Basketball Programs in Danger of Missing the 2016 NCAA Tournament

As the 2015-16 college basketball season moves closer to March, projected NCAA tournament brackets are popping up. These estimates of how the tourney field will shape up are in constant flux, with teams moving up and down in seeds and others going on and off the bubble.

Selection Sunday is more than six weeks away, but as things stand right now, the 2016 tournament might be missing some notable programs.

Several teams that have either been a mainstay in the field or entered 2015-16 expected to make a postseason run are instead in a position where they'll either need to finish the regular season red-hot or win their conference tournament to land an automatic bid.

Check out some of the top college basketball teams in jeopardy of being left out of the 2016 NCAA tourney.

Gonzaga

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Current record: 16-5, 8-2 West Coast

KenPom ranking: 40th

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 1998

Find a projected NCAA tournament field put together before the start of this season that did not have Gonzaga penciled in as either the West Coast Conference representative or at least a highly seeded at-large team, and you'll be showing a forgery. Go back several years, and the same will be the case, as the Bulldogs have become almost as much of a lock for the Big Dance as Duke or Kansas.

That's not the case this season—not by a long shot.

Gonzaga lost three times before conference play started, falling at home to Arizona and UCLA and dropping a one-point game to Texas A&M in the Bahamas. None of those were bad losses, but because of the Bulldogs' conference strength (or lack thereof), they needed to win such games to avoid being hurt by stumbles in the WCC.

Losing twice already in league play has Gonzaga on the bubble, and each loss it incurs from here on out will only increase its need to be the WCC's automatic qualifier—as the Bulldogs have been in 13 of the previous 17 seasons.

Ohio State

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Current record: 14-8, 6-3 Big Ten

KenPom ranking: 65th

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 2008

The writing was on the wall coming into 2015-16: It was going to be a down year for Ohio State, which lost its best player in D'Angelo Russell and has no standout playmakers. That didn't mean the Buckeyes weren't going to be in contention for an eighth straight NCAA tourney bid, but it wasn't a given.

Now it's going to come down to whether or not OSU can pull off a few upsets and finish strong.

Consecutive home losses to Texas-Arlington and Louisiana Tech started a four-game skid early this season, and five losses before Big Ten play were the most in Thad Matta's 12 seasons.

Ohio State is tied for fifth in the conference and only 1½ games out of first place, but to this point, those results have gone as expected. Its six league wins are to teams below it in the standings, while it's 0-3 against teams above or tied with it.

Sunday's visit from Maryland provides the Buckeyes with their last chance to make a splash until their final three regular-season games, when they play Michigan State (twice) and Iowa.

San Diego State

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Current record: 15-6, 8-0 Mountain West

KenPom ranking: 73rd

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 2009

San Diego State's six-year tournament appearance streak is the eighth-longest active run in the country, and it constitutes more than half of the program's all-time NCAA bids. Head coach Steve Fisher has made the Aztecs the class of the Mountain West Conference, winning the regular-season title in four of the previous five years. But in 2015-16, it may take a conference tourney title to ensure they get in.

An ambitious non-league schedule featured games against California, Kansas, Utah and West Virginia, and SDSU went 1-3 against those power programs. But the real damage came against lesser opponents. The Aztecs lost at home to Arkansas-Little Rock and Grand Canyon and dropped a game in a baseball stadium (Petco Park) to San Diego (which is 6-14).

Since MWC play began, though, San Diego State has been on fire and is in complete control of the league. It holds a two-game edge in the standings, but unless it can run the table during the regular season, it may need to win the conference tourney in Las Vegas to avoid having to sweat out Selection Sunday.

Syracuse

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Current record: 14-8, 4-5 ACC

KenPom ranking: 33rd

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 2015

Syracuse had made sixth straight tournament appearances before it banned itself from last year's postseason in response to an NCAA investigation into past infractions. Thursday's home win over Notre Dame could go a long way toward starting a new streak.

Before that 81-66 victory, Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller had Syracuse as his second-to-last team in the field, noting its November win against Texas A&M to claim the Battle 4 Atlantis title "is aging like a fine wine on steroids" and pairs well with a win at Duke on Jan. 18.

The Orange, however, won't be given a discount for their 4-5 record while head coach Jim Boeheim was serving a nine-game suspension. That included a horrible loss to a bad St. John's team and the majority of an 0-4 start in the ACC.

UCLA

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Current record: 12-9, 3-5 Pac-12

KenPom ranking: 67th

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 2012

Should UCLA be judged by its impressive wins, which include triumphs over Kentucky, Gonzaga and Arizona, or its mounting losses? Unless a few more of the former come around, all those previous performances will do is help the Bruins' NIT seeding.

An opening night overtime loss to Monmouth began the season-long roller coaster. UCLA went 1-2 in Maui but then beat Kentucky, handing the Wildcats their first regular-season loss since 2014. Nine days later, it won at Gonzaga for the fourth in a five-game streak of victories.

Since the Pac-12 slate started, it's been more of the same, with losses at Washington and Washington State followed by home wins against Arizona and Arizona State. Since then, the Bruins have lost three of four, with two of those losses coming at home, including Thursday's setback in which they rallied from an 18-point second-half deficit to take the lead but still lost to the Huskies in the final seconds.

Vanderbilt

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Current record: 12-8, 4-4 SEC

KenPom ranking: 31st

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 2015

Vanderbilt began the season ranked 18th in the Associated Press poll, despite not having made the NCAA tournament since 2012. The Commodores reached the NIT quarterfinals last March and returned a talented lineup that looked like it could be Kevin Stallings' best in almost a decade.

Vandy looked the part early, starting 6-1 with the only loss against Kansas in the Maui Invitational final—and then things went downhill in a hurry. The Commodores had little room for error after three December losses, all to potential NCAA tournament teams—and then they opened 0-3 in the SEC.

Losing 7'0" junior Luke Kornet for five games to a knee injury didn't help, but Vandy's remaining lineup should have been able to prevent a few of those losses.

Saturday's game at Texas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge and a visit from Texas A&M five days later give the Commodores some great resume-building opportunities, and winning at least one of those will go a long way toward earning an invite to the Big Dance.

Wisconsin

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Current record: 12-9, 4-4 Big Ten

KenPom ranking: 58th

Last year missing NCAA tournament: 1998

Bo Ryan never missed an NCAA tournament as Wisconsin's head coach, but Ryan isn't in charge anymore. He retired in mid-December, toward the tail end of a poor showing in nonconference play that put the Badgers' 17-year tourney streak in jeopardy.

Things haven't gotten much better since the Big Ten schedule began, as Wisconsin started 1-4 with the only victory coming at home against doormat Rutgers.

But the Badgers are on a three-game win streak heading into Sunday's trip to Illinois, having knocked off ranked teams Michigan State and Indiana at home and won at Penn State.

Wisconsin will need a lot more of those wins—and can't afford to lose to any of the teams near the bottom of the league—to have a shot at keeping its tourney streak alive.

KenPom.com rankings are as of Friday.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter @realBJP.