March Madness Intermission: Final Four Teams that Miss the Next Tournament

Think back to last year's Final Four. There was nary a one seed to be found. Connecticut, seeded fourth, won the title over fifth seed San Diego State. Joining the Huskies and Aztecs in Houston were Miami (fifth seed) and Florida Atlantic (ninth seed). Three of those teams are back in the 2024 NCAA Tournament looking to make another run at the national semifinal. As we noted yesterday, Miami failed to qualify and was not selected for this season's tournament field. How common is that? How often do Final Four teams miss the tournament altogether the next season? Its a little more common than you might think. 

In the previous 38 tournaments since the field expanded in 1985, 30 have failed to make the NCAA Tournament the following season. Just a note. While technically none of the 2019 Final Four teams participated in the 2020 NCAA Tournament, they were all likely to be selected according to Bracket Matrix. Of those 30 teams, some have been ineligible, some have been off true cinderella runs,  and some have been back-to-back champs. Here are those thirty teams that missed the tournament broken down by the seed they earned when they made their run to the Final Four. 

Is that a little surprising to you? I was shocked that one seeds (teams that enjoyed great seasons and were expected to compete for a national title) failed to qualify for the next year's tournament four times as often as cinderella eleven seeds. This is of course, how a more dishonest person would use math to obfuscate the truth. As you probably guessed, one seeds make the Final Four much more often then eleven seeds. In fact, they make it roughly twelve times as often.

Below I have conducted a more honest analysis showing how often each Final Four team by seed fails to qualify for the following season's tournament. 

One and two seeds that make the Final Four have about a one in eight chance of missing the next season's tournament. For individual seeds below the four line, the sample size is too small to give legitimate odds of missing the tournament the following season, but aggregated together, teams seeded five or worse have about a 38% chance of missing the tournament after making a Final Four run. Keep that in mind if we get a surprise run or two in this year's tournament. If you can find decent odds before next season starts of that team missing the NCAA Tournament, put a couple bucks down and send a percentage my way. 

Thanks for reading. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled offseason recaps next week as we review the MAC. Also, if you want some bracket advice, I recommend the magnum opus I wrote following the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament (don't back Iowa State!).