As they sweat the NCAA tournament bubble, mid-major teams are frequently penalized via metrics analysis for something that’s often beyond their control: who they played and, more precisely, who they didn’t.
This was the case for Miami (Ohio), which entered Selection Sunday with a 31-1 record, but made the field as one of the last four teams in thanks to a regular-season schedule that included zero games against Quad 1 opponents. Miami went on to beat SMU of the ACC in the First Four to advance to the full NCAA tournament field.
On Thursday, mid-major High Point pulled off the first significant upset of the NCAA tournament with an 83-82 win over No. 5 seed Wisconsin.
High Point coach: ‘We’ve played somebody now’
High Point didn’t have to sweat the bubble thanks to its victory in the Big South tournament that came with an automatic bid.
But head coach Flynn Clayman was ready to carry the torch for mid-major teams — and criticize high majors, as soon as the buzzer sounded on High Point’s win.
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Here’s his immediate response to TBS when asked how it felt to secure the first NCAA tournament win in program history:
"Looks pretty obvious to me that high-majors need to play mid-majors early in the season. Because they said we didn't play nobody. We played somebody now."
-High Point HC Flynn Clayman pic.twitter.com/IpObzgJSGm
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 19, 2026
“It looks pretty obvious to me that high majors need to play mid-majors during the season,” Clayman said “They say we didn’t play nobody. We’ve played somebody now.”
When asked again about the win, Clayman again called out high-major teams for not scheduling games against mid-majors.
“Feels unreal. Because I know how good of a team we had,” he continued. “But nobody would play us. Just like they wouldn’t play Miami (Ohio). But they’ve got to play us in this tournament.”
Why don’t mid-majors play high-majors?
Like Miami, High Point did not play a power conference opponent during the regular season. There’s little financial or basketball incentive for power programs to schedule games agains mid-majors, so they frequently don’t.
And it’s not for a lack of trying. Miami associate head coach Jonathan Holmes previously told Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg that the program “was told no by probably 75 to 90 teams” that it tried to put on its schedule.
This leaves mid-majors at disadvantage when it comes to the advanced metrics that determine NCAA seeding and which bubble teams make the field and which don’t. If a team doesn’t have any Quad 1 wins, it’s difficult to make progress in the NET rankings that the selection committee references is filling out the field.
If a team doesn’t have any games against a Quad 1 opponent, it, obviously, doesn’t have any Quad 1 wins.
‘We couldn’t get games’
Clayman expounded on this conundrum during his postgame news conference, while noting that High Point and Miami are now a combined 2-0 against Quad 1 opponents with their NCAA tournament victories.
“High Point and Miami (Ohio) are 2-0 in Quad 1 games,” he said. “We couldn’t get games, they couldn’t get games. Akron couldn’t get games. UNCW couldn’t get games. Belmont couldn’t get games. We won 22 of our last 23 games; we didn’t move up 1 spot in the metrics. Not one.
“We’ve won 25 games by double digits. That team right there (Wisconsin) is a fantastic team that beat five top 10 teams. If we can get games like this on neutral courts and some home games, I think we’d know who’s really the best teams.”
How does college basketball fix this?
While Clayman’s point is salient, a solution isn’t simple. For power conference teams, scheduling games against mid-majors doesn’t offer a financial windfall. It also presents little upside on the basketball front.
A win over a mid-major does team little to boost a power conference team’s NCAA tournament résumé, where a loss would be a significant hit. It’s almost purely a downside play for high-major teams.
A potential solution could be regular-season tournaments or showcases that feature high majors against top mid-majors on neutral courts.
But as of now, that’s not the norm. And mid-major teams are left to navigate the NCAA tournament bubble with little opportunity to boost their résumés.