Illinois State Coach Dan Muller Tweets Plea for Top Leagues to Play Redbirds

Illinois State head coach Dan Muller is clearly annoyed with the NCAA selection committee for leaving his team out of the NCAA tournament, and he took to Twitter on Monday to express those frustrations:

That led to the following exchange with Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork:

Apparently, it didn't take long for the two sides to iron out a tentative agreement:

The Redbirds have a legitimate gripe. They finished 27-6 and reached the Missouri Valley Conference tournament title game, losing to Wichita State. However, the team's only top-50 win this season came against the Shockers, while the Redbirds lost to TCU, the toughest non-conference opponent the team managed to schedule.

"My team is crushed," Muller told Scott Gleeson of USA Today. "I feel terrible for them, especially my seniors. We feel we should be in but we aren't. It's tough to take but we'll have to gather ourselves and get ready for the NIT."

He added: "We ask dozens of schools to play us every year and they won't. Don't talk to me about scheduling."

The players were just as disappointed with the snub.

"I'm pretty upset, mad-slash-sad, shocked," guard Paris Lee told Mike Helfgot of the Chicago Tribune. "Everybody in that locker room is human. Everybody is hurt."

Illinois State is a No. 1 seed in the NIT, alongside California, Iowa and Syracuse, and will face UC Irvine in first-round action on Wednesday. It will be one of the favorites to win the title, though it's clearly not the title the Redbirds had been hoping to contend for this season.