One of the biggest questions heading into Selection Sunday was whether the Miami (OH) RedHawks — who went an astonishing 31‑0 — would receive an at-large bid after losing in the quarterfinals of their conference tournament.
The answer is in: Miami (OH) did make the 68-team field, though they didn’t get a bye into the Round of 64. The RedHawks will play in Dayton on Wednesday night in the First Four against SMU.
If they win that game, Miami (OH) would advance to a Friday matchup against the Tennessee Volunteers, a No. 6 seed, giving them a chance to play into the weekend.
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Now, if the RedHawks hope to make a true Cinderella run — which I’m sure some people will be putting them in their brackets to do — they’ll have quite the challenging task.
If they can defeat SMU and then beat Tennessee in the first round, it would set them up with the winner of No. 3 Virginia and No. 14 Wright State in the Round of 32. A win there would push them into the Sweet 16, something their program hasn’t done since 1999.
To advance beyond that, the RedHawks — who don’t have any quad one or quad two wins, a main reason they fell into the First Four despite 31 victories — would have to go through one of these four teams: No. 7 Kentucky, No. 10 Santa Clara, No. 2 Iowa State, or No. 15 Tennessee State.
It’s certainly a challenging path to the Elite Eight, and it’s difficult to predict who the RedHawks would face that far down the line. If the region’s No. 1 seed holds, it would likely be the Michigan Wolverines.
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