How Miami Ohio's Perfect Season Ending is Bad News For Virginia Tech and Other Bubble Teams

Miami (OH) has been one of the best stories of the college basketball season. The RedHawks began the season 31-0 and had won several close games, but today their luck ran out.

The RedHawks were taken down in the MAC Tournament quarterfinals by UMass, and debate about whether or not Miami would get into the field has begun. This has been viewed as one of the worst NCAA Tournament bubbles ever, and it appears that the RedHawks are going to be fine and in the field, but if that is the case, that means that the MAC is going to be a multibid league, and that means that some team's bubble just burst.

How it affects Virginia Tech

After their loss to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament, Virginia Tech was seen as a team that did not have much of a chance to be included in the field any longer. Despite several opportunities down the stretch of the season to get quality victories, Virginia Tech could not take advantage and now they will almost certainly land on the outside of the bubble.

Coming into the day, ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had the Hokies among the "next four out" category, and after the loss by Miami Ohio, they remain there. The last four teams in right now, according to Lunardi, are Miami (OH), VCU, Texas, and SMU.

pic.twitter.com/PtiMSPN9kB
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) March 12, 2026

When the day began, CBS Sports' Matt Norlander had the Hokies solidly out of the tournament bubble picture:

BULLETIN: Here's the Bubble Situation™️ for Maybe The Worst Bubble Ever©️ coming out of Wednesday and heading into Thursday.

Teams' résumés generally ranked from best to worst. pic.twitter.com/G49nwkpaBt
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 12, 2026

It was already going to be a massive hill to climb for Virginia Tech to get back in the bubble picture, but their fate is all but sealed now and other teams on the bubble are going to be bumped in favor of the 31-1 RedHawks.

Missed chances

Hokies head coach Mike Young talked about the missed opportunities that his team has had this season after their loss to Wake Forest:

"Doing it a long time. 24 years as a head coach, you have never heard me make an excuse. Was it hurtful? Yeah. But tonight, down Amani, and you've got to find a way to continue to win, and we didn't do enough of that. We didn't do enough of that. Not quite good enough.

There was a lot of mixing and matching throughout the year. It wasn't a shoo-in, this team. They all matter. We did a lot of things right. 11-2 coming out of non-conference. We didn't have a blemish. We still don't have a blemish. We had great opportunities. We had unbelievable opportunities. Now, a lot of those opportunities were on the road. North Carolina, Louisville. We won at Clemson, won at Syracuse, on and on. Had Duke at home, and they were playing really, really good basketball. We had our opportunities, and we came up just short. That's disappointing, infuriating, and I take a lot of responsibility there."

There is going to be a lot of debate about who should be in and who should be out leading into Selection Sunday, but don't expect to hear the Hokies name called.