March Madness: How Does Selection Sunday Work and Who Could Face the Snub in 2024?

Selection Sunday is in the neighborhood and the basketball fans are bubbling with the imminent excitement. All the mysteries building up in the past few weeks will finally solve themselves tomorrow as the NCAA will release the seeds, bracket, and other details of the much-anticipated NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournament. With some teams certainly in the field and others in question, fans also wait for the underdogs in the bubble.

But who selects the panel of 68 teams and how does it all work? Also, will the team you want to see even make it into the Big Dance? Let us get our notes cleared before Sunday finally comes knocking down our doors.

Does the NCAA Selection Sunday operate on the show of hands?

If you call winning a conference tournament fair-and-square a show of hands, then yes, a part of Selection Sunday may operate like that. However, the math behind its work is far more complex. While the 32 conference winners will directly shoot their way into the March Madness, the remaining teams may still get into the Big Dance through the at-large bid.

The selection committee is comprised of 12 people, including school athletic directors and conference commissioners. The cautiously jotted-out members here ensure that favoritism does not factor in during the crucial decisions. These authorities select the teams based on several resources provided to them. Apparently, their performance during the regular season and NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) ranking plays a pivotal role in bringing a team to the tournament.

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Once done with selecting the teams, the committee gives them seeds, divides them into regions, and places them in the brackets. The matchups will bring the lowest-seed team against the highest-seed team in the first round. Moreover, four winning teams from the first four games (lowest seed) will also make it to the bracket.

The men’s bracket will be released tomorrow from 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT on CBS. On the other hand, the women’s bracket will be revealed two hours later from 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ESPN. Now, we have the 32 automatic bids from conference wins for this year.

But who from the bubble may not get the invitation to the eagerly awaited NCAA tournament?

Teams who did not make the cut for the men’s tournament

The following teams are ineligible to go into the tournament, owing to their sub-par performance during the NCAA regular season. The teams and their respective conferences are-

• America East- NJIT
• ASUN- Central Arkansas, Bellarmine, Queens
• Big West– Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly, UC San Diego
• Ivy League– Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth
• MAC- Ball State, Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois, Buffalo
• NEC- Stonehill
• Ohio Valley- Tennessee Tech, Southeast Missouri State, Lindenwood, Southern Indiana
• Southland- Houston Christian, Incarnate Word, Texas A&M Commerce
• SWAC- Arkansas Pine-Bluff, Prairie View A&M, Florida A&M, Mississippi Valley State
• Summit League– St. Thomas
• WAC- Utah Tech. Southern Utah, UT Rio Grande Valley

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Women’s basketball has also made a loud noise this season and hence their March Madness is also as anticipated as men’s. But here are the teams who did not make the cut this year.

Women’s teams who fell out before the tournament

A set of teams from each conference will not be making their way into the roaring arenas of the NCAA tournament due to their substandard and inadequate stats during the regular season. Here are the names-

• America East- New Hampshire
• Atlantic 10- Davidson
• ASUN- Bellarmine, Queens, North Florida
• Big West– Cal State Bakersfield, UC San Diego, Cal State Northridge
• Ivy League– Cornell, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth
• MAC- Eastern Michigan, Miami (Ohio), Akron, Central Michigan
• NEC- Stonehill, Le Moyne, Wagner
• Ohio Valley- Lindenwood, Southern Missouri State, SIU Edwardsville
• Southland- Houston Christian, McNeese
• SWAC- Texas Southern, Bethune-Cookman, Mississippi Valley State, Alabama State
• Summit League– St. Thomas
• WAC- Utah Valley, Utah Tech, Tarleton State, UT Rio Grande Valley, Seattle

There are some teams like Hatters and the Lobos that had never appeared in the Big Dance and will be making their first appearance in the men’s league. At the same time, teams including Presbyterian Blue Hose will etch their names for the first time in the women’s NCAA backet.

All-in-all it is going to be an interesting tournament as many predict that multiple teams will continue displaying a Cinderella through the knockouts. Did your favorite team make the cut to the NCAA tournament? Which team are you rooting for this March Madness? Let us know in the comments below!

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