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Wally Szczerbiak 'surprised' Miami Ohio sent to First Four of March Madness
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- Wally Szczerbiak 'surprised' Miami Ohio sent to First Four of March Madness
Miami (Ohio) finished the regular season undefeated with a 31-0 record but fell to Massachusetts in the first round of the MAC tournament, putting its 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament resume into question.
But the RedHawks heard their name called on Selection Sunday, and will face SMU in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio, for a chance to play No. 6 Tennessee in the first round. Miami wasn't the last team included in the field — it was ahead of Texas, SMU and North Carolina State — but was punished, regardless, for its weak metrics and strength of schedule.
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"(Miami) came in before NC State, Texas and SMU," NCAA selection committee chair Keith Gill said on the live show. "And during our scrubbing process, those teams scrubbed above (Miami) relative to the predictive metrics and also the difference in the quality of wins."
Former NBA All-Star and Miami standout Wally Szczerbiak, now an analyst for CBS Sports, was surprised Miami is headed to Dayton for the First Four, and thought his alma mater should've been squarely in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
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"Very surprised that Miami was sent to the First Four," he said . "It is in Dayton, it's an hour from campus. So they're gonna have a huge crowd, and they have a lot to prove by being put into that First Four."
Miami is the lowest-ranked team by NCAA's Net Rankings to earn an at-large bid, coming in at No. 64 in the metric. The RedHawks played zero Quad 1 games, won three Quad 2 games and their lone loss was a Quad 4 game.
CBS Sports' bracketologist Mackenzie Brooks said Miami's record outweighed its metrics when it came to earning an NCAA Tournament bid.
"Their record is clearly what's carrying them into the tournament," she said. "It's their resume-based metrics that got them here (and) it's their predictive-based metrics that are keeping them in Ohio. They did enough to prove they deserve to be here, but when it comes to your predictives, not really something they're shining in."
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Miami is an 8.5-point underdog against SMU on Tuesday, March 17, according to BetMGM. The RedHawks have a lot of doubters, and they'll be looking to prove them wrong when they travel down the road to Dayton.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Miami Ohio to First Four? Wally Szczerbiak 'surprised' at NCAA Tournament placement
