When the 2024 NCAA Tournament field was announced on March 17, a total of 36 bids were awarded to at-large teams. But how many many of those 36 will be back in the 2025 NCAA Tournament? The most recent data suggests a significant chunk will wind up on the wrong side of the bubble in the season ahead.
Of the 36 at-large teams who made the 2023 Big Dance, 15 were left out in 2024. That’s a testament to how difficult it is to maintain high-level success in college basketball year over year. Among those who missed the 2024 tournament was a Miami program that made the 2023 Final Four and a Kansas State team that reached the 2023 Elite Eight.
Other strong brands such as Arkansas, Indiana and UCLA were in for 2023 but out for 2024. Making the tournament is tough, which is why Michigan State’s mark of 26 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, and Gonzaga’s stretch of 25 in a row are so impressive.
So which teams that made the 2024 NCAA Tournament as at-large teams are at risk of missing it in 2025? For this week’s Dribble Handoff, our writers are making their picks for which 2024 at-large teams won’t be back in the Big Dance this season.
What Danny Sprinkle did last season at Utah State was so unexpected and awesome that the 47 year-old Washington native was able to catapult his career straight into the Big Ten, where he’s now coaching the Washington Huskies after just one season in the Mountain West.
It really was an incredible story.
Sprinkle went 28-7, secured a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced the Aggies to the second round of the Big Dance for just the fifth time in school history — this after, at one point last offseason, having zero scholarship players in the…
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