Miami (Ohio) holds on for OT win, completes perfect regular season

If that seems like a crazy thing to say about a 31-0 team in a sport where 68 teams make the tournament, that is because it is. But it is also the nature of the beast that is big-time college basketball in 2026. 

The only criticism against this Miami team is the fact that it has not played a strong schedule and has not played a single AP-ranked team all season. Its resume does not stack up with other top teams, nor does its conference schedule.

Because the MAC is typically a one-big conference, there is a very real debate raging on as to whether or not a top-25 team that just went undefeated throughout the season should be in the tournament. 

Miami (Ohio) is facing the double-edged sword that a lot of mid-major teams face in college sports these days. They do not have the competition in their conference to pile up resume-building wins, nor do enough non-conference teams actually want to schedule them. They do not get the big games, but they never get the chance to play them. 

Adding to the debate is that Miami (Ohio) has also had a lot of games like Friday night, where they barely got by and won. They needed Ohio to miss a couple of shots at the buzzer in both the second half and overtime on Friday to secure the win. But no matter how they did it, they managed to do it 31 times this season and in every game they played. A lot of teams played softer schedules this season. There are 12 other teams in the MAC alone playing a similar level of competition. Nobody else did what this team did.

That counts for something. It has to count for something.