NCAA tournament snubs 2025: Most significant teams that didn't make March Madness

The NCAA Tournament announcement made 68 teams happy, but plenty of others missed out. Significant snubs like SMU, Indiana, West Virginia and Wake Forest littered the list of teams not making the March Madness jaunt.

Here's a quick rundown on the most deserving teams who did not make it to the NCAA Tournament.

2025 NCAA tournament snubs

Boise State was a surprising omission from the NCAA Tournament field. (Photo Credit: IMAGN)

Indiana

Indiana had one of the better cases of teams left out of the Big Dance. Indiana was 10-10 in Big Ten play and 19-13 overall. The knock on the Hoosiers was that IU didn't look like an NCAA Tournament in the early season. After all, coach Mike Woodson has already been canned.

But IU defeated Michigan State and Purdue, and hung close down the stretch against quality teams. It stands out that Indiana had no sub-quadrant I losses. No bad losses and a handful of quality wins would usually get a Big Ten team an NCAA ticket. Not this time.

West Virginia

West Virginia was an expected NCAA team and a 19-13 record and 10-10 mark in league play did nothing to change that. Frankly, what killed West Virginia was probably taking a bad loss to Colorado to open the Big 12 Tournament.

West Virginia is sort of the opposite of Indiana. They were tough early-- beating teams including Kansas, Iowa State, Arizona and Gonzaga, but they struggled late and that got them booted out of the NCAA Tournament field.

Wake Forest

The ACC had an awful reputation this year and that bit both Wake Forest and SMU badly. Each team had a 13-7 record in conference play. Wake can claim significant wins over Big Ten champion Michigan and SMU. What probably knocked the 20-11 Demon Deacons out were a pair of awful quad 3 home losses to Florida State and Virginia.

SMU

Like Wake, SMU was 13-7 in league play. Its 23-10 overall mark was a little sunnier. The case against SMU was largely a lack of top-quality wins. Unlike Wake, the Mustangs didn't take any awful losses. Their worst was a road game at Florida State (quad 2).

But SMU didn't get glamorous wins. They were 0-5 in quad 1 games and their most impressive win was at home against Pittsburgh. An 8-0 non-conference record in quad 3 and quad 4 games suggests that scheduling axed the Mustangs.

Boise State

Boise was a bit of a surprise. The Broncos were 24-10 on the year and 14-6 in league play. San Diego State instead made the field at 21-9 and the same 14-6 in conference.

Boise had three quad 1 wins (Clemson, St. Mary's, New Mexico), but probably took a dive based on a quad 3 loss (neutral site vs. Washington State) and a quad 4 loss (neutral site vs. Boston College). Still, many thought the Broncos' resume was good enough for the NCAA Tournament.

What do you think of the missing teams from the NCAA's Big Dance? Share your thoughts on who should have been in the NCAA Tournament below!