Tennessee head coach Cuonzo MartinKNOXVILLE – Tennessee was left out of the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive season.
And the Volunteers might have been one of the first couple of teams to miss the 68-team field.
The bracket was unveiled on Sunday evening, and the final four teams to receive an at-large bid were Boise State, La Salle, Middle Tennessee State and St. Mary’s.
Tennessee had more wins against the RPI top 100 than each of those teams. The Vols’ three wins against the RPI’s top 50 teams were more than MTSU and St. Mary’s, who won just one each. Each of those four teams had a higher RPI than Tennessee.
“Tennessee had a lot of conversation, as did all of those last group of teams that we evaluated,” NCAA tournament selection committee chairman Mike Bobinski said on CBS after the network released the brackets. “We really worked hard and have a lot of respect for the improvement that Tennessee showed down the stretch of the season. During that time, though, they honestly didn’t beat a lot of very powerful teams and, again, struggled to win on the road during the course of the year.