The NCAA Tournament selection committee has spoken. The field of 65 teams battling for collegiate national supremacy is set, and while your TV set shows teams jumping with elation after hearing their names called, there are several groups that were left hanging. They are those ballplayers who have been hearing the name on the front of their jerseys beside the phrase “on the bubble” for the past several weeks, and now have no need to have their names mentioned again as the race to the Final Four begins. Here are the top 4 teams NOT dancing this postseason.

4. Ole Miss

Mississippi misses the Tournament after having a successful year in a tough SEC conference. The Rebels finished with an 21-10 overall record and a 9-7 conference record. What might have hurt the Rebels’ chance of making the Tournament were their struggles late in the season, but prior to Selection Sunday the selection committee made it clear that they would not be weighing the last 12 games of a team’s season as heavily as the previous games. That assertion is what gave Wake Forest a #9 seed in the Big Dance despite a horrible end to their regular season. The Demon Deacons of Wake Forest went 1-5 in their last six games, including two losses to teams at the bottom of the ACC. Ole Miss lost 6 of their last 11 games, but lost to high caliber teams like #1 seeded Kentucky and #4 seeded Vanderbilt, and the Rebels finished out their year winning four out of five games, with the loss coming to #6 seeded Tennesee. A 16-4 start to the season, a strong non-conference schedule that included a 2-2 record against top 25 teams, and a 9-7 record in a conference that has three top 25 teams of its own should have been enough to garner the right type of attention from the selection committee.

3. Illinois

While a 19-14 record doesn’t jump out as being one of the strongest in the country, the Fighting Illini boast a handful of impressive wins. The Illini twice handled Wisconsin, a #4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, once on the road at Wisconsin and again in the Big Ten tournament. Illinois also gave #5 seeded Michigan State one of its only four conference losses and claims non-conference victories on the road at Clemson and at home over #4 seeded Vanderbilt. As a team that has proven on numerous ocassions its ability to defeat some of the top contenders in the country, the Illini deserved an at-large bid into Tournament.

2. Virgina Tech

All the Hokies did this season was go 10-6 in ACC play and finish fourth in a conference that had six teams selected to be in the Big Dance, but Virginia Tech somehow managed not to be one of those six. Besides being fourth place in the ACC based on conference record, the Hokies also tied for the second-most overall wins in the ACC with 23 victories. Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Clemson are all going to the Tournament from the ACC, all have less overall and conference victories than Virginia Tech, and all lost to the Hokies in the one and only time each team played them. Coach Seth Greenberg might opt not to publicly name a team he thinks his Hokies should replace in the Tournament, but I can name three.

1. Mississippi State

Mississippi State was basically auditioning Sunday for a spot in the Tournament as they met #1 seeded Kentucky in the finals of the SEC Tournment. The Bulldogs entered the SEC tournament a bubble team after a 21-10 regular season that included wins over every other team in the SEC West, and a heartbreaking overtime loss to the often dominant Kentucky Wildcats. Mississippi State went on to defeat Florida (a #10 seed in the Tournament) and handle Vanderbilt (#4 seed in the Tournament) in consecutive games, before losing again to Kentucky in the SEC finals in a game that the Bulldogs came within .1 seconds of winning. Yet defeating two possible Sweet Sixteen teams down the stretch, making it to the Finals of a major conference tournament and almost tasting victory twice against a favorite to win the national championship all figured to give the selection committee a reason to snub Mississippi State.

While these four teams failed to be recognized by the selection comittee, I’ll give them enough credit to say that had all of them been put in the Tournament field, one of them could’ve found themselves making a run to the Sweet Sixteen, or even the Elite 8.