NCAA Tournament: Washington Huskies Are Out

The Washington Huskies have made history today as they are the first team in a power six conference to win their regular season title but yet not make it into the NCAA tournament.

They will be invited to the NIT and as a number 1 seed. However, that doesn’t dull the pain of most Husky fans as they were hoping to hear the Washington name announced in the NCAA tournament.

The Huskies’ resume just wasn’t impressive enough and the selection committee will rarely allow a team with an RPI as high has UW to be in the tournament as an at-large team. The only wins that could pad their resume was against other Pac-12 teams and the best non conference win was against UC Santa Barbara.

Washington was considered a team in the NCAA bracket going into the Pac-12 tournament but they lost their first game to the Oregon State Beavers. This placed them on the bubble and essentially on the outside looking in.

There was some hope for Husky fans as they saw a Colorado team that wasn’t going to make the tournament without becoming the Pac-12 tournament get seeded as an 11. However, the final region was announced and it was Cal in the 12 seed play-in game instead of Washington.

The biggest complaints around Husky Nation is that Iona was able to get in after being the regular season conference champions for the MAAC conference but losing early in their tournament. The other will be that Cal got in even though the resume was just as under impressive.

However, in the end the selection committee saw both Iona and Cal as better NCAA teams than Washington. The Huskies will now be headed to the NIT and hoping to send a message by winning it all.