March Madness bracket first four out: Why Auburn, Oklahoma, Indiana, San Diego State missed 2026 NCAA Tournament originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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While there are 68 teams preparing for their first NCAA Tournament game in a few days, a few teams on the outside are thinking what could have been. For the "First Four Out," the final reveal was less of a selection and more of a sentence, as the closing of the bracket officially separated a season of high-level metrics from the immortality of the Big Dance.
Auburn, Oklahoma, Indiana and San Diego State find themselves in this localized limbo, a group defined more by the teams they didn’t beat than the ones they did. For these programs, the coming weeks will be a quiet period of "what-ifs," where the narrowest of margins — a missed free throw in February or a buzzer-beater in a distant conference — effectively pulled the plug on their championship aspirations.
Here are the first four teams out of the NCAA Tournament who saw their season end on Sunday night.
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Why Auburn missed the NCAA Tournament
The Tigers entered the season with high expectations following a leadership transition to Steven Pearl, looking to build on the momentum of recent deep tournament runs. Despite a roster anchored by explosive backcourt talent like Tahaad Pettiford, the team struggled with consistency, particularly in high-leverage road environments where their offensive rhythm often faltered.
The primary undoing for Auburn was a staggering 4–13 record in Quadrant 1 opportunities. While they played one of the most difficult schedules in the country, the committee ultimately viewed their inability to secure anchor win as a fatal flaw. The Tigers did secure two massive wins over the Big East champions St. Johns and being the only team to go down to Gainesville and beat the defending NCAA champions Florida, but it wasn't enough compared to the rest of the resume. A late-season loss to Tennessee in the SEC Tournament served as the final blow, leaving them at just 17–16 overall—a record that proved too thin to overcome despite strong advanced metrics.
With the SEC projected to send as many as ten teams to the field, Auburn found themselves at the bottom of a crowded tiebreaker pile. Without a winning record in conference play or a signature neutral-site victory to hang their hats on, they were relegated to the top of the "First Four Out" list.
SN AWARDS: All-America team | Player of the Year | Coach of the Year
Why Oklahoma missed the NCAA Tournament
Porter Moser’s squad endured a brutal nine-game losing streak in the heart of SEC play before mounting a furious late-season comeback. Led by the scoring of Nijel Pack, the Sooners transformed into one of the hottest teams in the country by March, rattling off five straight wins to claw back onto the bubble.
Despite impressive late-season wins over Vanderbilt and Georgia, their NET ranking of 55 and a lackluster non-conference strength of schedule made it difficult to justify an at-large bid. Their mid-season collapse created a hole so deep that even a quarterfinal appearance in the SEC Tournament wasn't enough to dig out. If the Sooners were able to claw out a win over the eventual champions, Arkansas, it would have put them on the right side of the bubble.
The Sooners' resume was further hampered by three losses by a combined seven points during their slump. While they proved they could compete with the elite — beating several teams that actually made the field — the committee prioritized full-season body of work over momentum, leaving Oklahoma as a cautionary tale of how much a January slide can haunt a team in March.
HISTORY OF UPSETS BY SEED:
16 vs. 1 | 15 vs. 2 | 14 vs. 3 | 13 vs. 4 | 12 vs. 5
Why San Diego State missed the NCAA Tournament
Coming off five consecutive tournament appearances, Brian Dutcher’s Aztecs were once again the standard-bearers for the Mountain West. However, their season was defined by health issues, most notably the recurring hip and knee struggles of star big man Magoon Gwath. When the 7-footer was on the floor, the Aztecs possessed one of the nation’s most intimidating interior defenses, but his six-game absence in mid-season forced the rotation into a state of flux that they never quite stabilized.
Gwath showed flashes of his dominant self down the stretch, including a brilliant 17-point, two-block performance in the Mountain West semifinal win over New Mexico. Yet, the committee likely noted the team's vulnerability when he wasn't at 100%, and despite his return to the starting lineup for the conference title game against Utah State, a lack of signature road wins and a late-February skid ultimately doomed their at-large hopes.
The Aztecs’ exclusion marks the first time since 2019 that the program will miss the Big Dance. For a team built on defensive suffocation, being relegated to the first team out is a bitter pill to swallow, especially given the what if" regarding Gwath’s health. Had their rim protector been available for the full slate, the metrics might have been enough to shield them from a year where bid stealers shrunk the bubble significantly.
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Why Indiana missed the NCAA Tournament
The first year of the Darian DeVries era in Bloomington was a grueling exercise in roster reconstruction. After Mike Woodson's departure, DeVries had to build nearly the entire team from scratch via the portal, centering the offense around his son, Tucker DeVries. While the Hoosiers showed flashes of the Drake-style efficiency that Darian was known for, the lack of veteran continuity led to defensive lapses that ultimately left them with an 18–14 record and a 10th-place finish in the Big Ten.
The anchor that officially dragged Indiana down was a devastating loss to Northwestern in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament. In a game they absolutely had to win to keep their bubble hopes alive, the Hoosiers were out-executed by a Wildcats team that had struggled for much of the conference slate. That single-elimination heartbreak at the United Center essentially ended the debate for the committee, as it left IU without a winning conference record or a deep March run to point to.
Ultimately, the selection committee cited Indiana's inconsistent road performance and that critical head-to-head setback against Northwestern as the deciding factors. While DeVries has laid the foundation for a more modern offensive identity, the Hoosiers became a casualty of a year where power conference depth was at an all-time high, finishing as one of the final teams left at the altar on Selection Sunday.