Which men’s NCAA Tournament teams are in danger of missing the field in 2026?

If I am remembering high school science class correctly (Editor’s note: He is not), Newton’s Third Law of Bracketology states that for every team that forces its way into the NCAA Tournament after missing the previous season, an equal and opposite number of teams must turn in their dance cards. (That is, until expansion comes along.)

So after looking at the most likely candidates to make the men’s tournament in 2026 after missing out in 2025, we have to flip the script and speculate on whose spots they’ll take. Whether due to a coaching change, a crippling transfer portal season or simple graduation losses, programs that looked strong one season can find themselves in far more humbling circumstances the following year.

That has been the fate of at least 12 teams in each of the past three seasons. In this post-pandemic, portal-heavy era, the NCAA Tournament has seen major names come and go each year. Here is the list of squads that failed to qualify for the past three events after doing so the previous campaign:

Note: The presence of bid stealers can decrease the pool at-large *caliber* teams that get into the field.

College basketball is a fickle world, and a group of teams will get a firsthand look on Selection Sunday 2026. Below are seven candidates to fall out of the NCAA Tournament field after making it in 2025.

1. Xavier

Why They’ll Miss It: To the surprise of many, Xavier slipped into the First Four last season and promptly gave fans a delight of a game in a win over Texas. Musketeers’ coach Sean Miller parlayed that late surge to a new job — at Texas, of all places, leaving Xavier in the lurch.

For the first time since Thad Matta in 2001, the Musketeers hired an outside name with no real Xavier connections. Richard Pitino has plenty of Big East connections, though, as the son of St. John’s coach Rick Pitino. He is tasked with a massive rebuilding project in Cincinnati, as the Musketeers return only one scholarship player. That player, Roddie Anderson, redshirted last season and did not play a single minute.

During an offseason when team payrolls exploded elsewhere, the younger Pitino faced an uphill battle to fill out the roster. He took several gambles on younger players with upside (Gabriel Pozzato, All Wright, Anthony Robinson) and brought two role players with him from New Mexico (Filip Borovicanin, Jovan Milicevic). The rest of the roster is veteran stopgaps to hopefully retain some respectability in Year 1.

Without much high-level talent, though, Xavier is likely to be on the outside looking in, and Pozzato’s offseason meniscus tear dampened its postseason hopes even further.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: Pitino found enough veteran contributors to remain competitive in a Big East that has a ton of questions after the top three (or even top two) teams. Robinson could become a dominant interior defender, and Tre Carroll is a clever scoring forward. Malik Messina-Moore, Isaiah Walker and Borovicanin give the Lobos a wing corps that has won a lot of games. Xavier could again sneak into the NCAA Tournament just before the door slams.

2. New Mexico

Why They’ll Miss It: The Lobos are completely unrecognizable compared to last season’s team. As noted above, Richard Pitino took the Xavier job, and New Mexico lost every single player off last year’s roster in the tumultuous offseason that followed. New coach Eric Olen will take over the drastic overhaul.

To his credit, Olen is fresh off guiding UC San Diego — in just its fifth season in Division I — to 30 wins and a top-40 KenPom ranking. The 45-year-old is widely regarded as a rising star in the business, and he managed to convince Chris Howell and Milos Vicentic to come with him to Albuquerque. Fans at The Pit will still have a fun team to cheer for, especially with bouncy athletes like Kevin Patton and Antonio Chol flying around. Olen also nabbed a point guard with winning experience in the Mountain West in Deyton Albury from Utah State.

However, the talent level is clearly lower than a team with Donovan Dent, Nelly Junior Joseph and Tru Washington. Olen has to totally rebuild the outlook in Albuquerque, and asking him to get the Lobos back into the NCAA Tournament in his debut season is far too greedy.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: Olen might be a certified coaching star after what he was able to build at UC San Diego. He brought two useful pieces from that squad, and the rest of the transfer group — particularly Patton and Chol — is loaded with upside. The freshman class, especially Croatian big Tomislav Buljan and jitterbug guard Uriah Tenette, is sneaky strong as well.

3. Georgia

Why They’ll Miss It: Mike White’s Bulldogs found an identity that worked last season. Led by Asa Newell, RJ Godfrey and Somto Cyril, Georgia evolved into a bully in the paint. The Dawgs posted by far the best offensive rebound rate ranking in White’s coaching career (18th; the next best was 65th) and had an outstanding interior defense. Silas Demary spearheaded a rim-centric offense that lived at the free-throw line. Georgia was one of the biggest teams in the country, ranking ninth in KenPom’s Average Height statistic.

This year’s team is lacking in most of those attributes. The perimeter core is much smaller, with the 6-1 Jeremiah Wilkinson and 6-3 Jordan Ross vying to replace Demary, who transferred to UConn. Godfrey boomeranged back to Clemson. Newell was a first-round selection in the NBA Draft, and no one on this roster possesses that kind of game-changing talent on both ends of the court.

Kanon Catchings is a tantalizing new piece who could possibly reach that professional echelon, but he found himself riding the bench at BYU once the Cougars found their groove. In a loaded SEC, it is difficult to envision the Dawgs capturing the same magic as last year.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: Cyril, Dylan James and Justin Abson can still be a powerhouse paint crew, imitating last year’s colossal interior identity. Catchings is immensely talented and could realize his pro-level potential, and the Ross/Wilkinson transfer backcourt has upside.

4. Saint Mary’s

Why They’ll Miss It: The Gaels are a cyclical program, and this year’s roster is feeling the force of graduations. Augustas Marciulionis and Luke Barrett each played north of 34 minutes per game, and Mitchell Saxen was a five-year program mainstay who started 104 straight games over his final three seasons. Saint Mary’s also lost Jordan Ross to the transfer portal, a fourth starter out the door.

While Saint Mary’s does have a potential perimeter star in Mikey Lewis, as well as multiple options at center, the Gaels are counting on a lot of unknowns to fill in the roster blanks. Unproven rookies like Mantas Juzenas and Dillan Shaw could be pressed into duty immediately, and redshirt freshman Liam Campbell started the Gaels’ exhibition game against Arizona. The lone key transfer addition, Tony Duckett, was a net negative player in the WCC last year at San Diego.

Even Randy Bennett, an indisputably brilliant coach, has lulls in his program. His Gaels missed the NCAA Tournament in 2021, 2018 and for three straight years from 2014 to ’16. With only one senior on the roster, Saint Mary’s could be in for a slight step back before a major surge forward in 2026-27.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: Bennett’s brilliance knows no bounds. The Gaels have made four straight NCAA Tournaments, and their internal development track record is among the best in the country. They retained multiple vital pieces, and even if the freshmen have to play a lot, Bennett’s talent identification skill can help them outperform their expectations.

5. Texas A&M

Why They’ll Miss It: The Aggies were a victim of Buzz Williams’ incessant desire to find a new challenge, as he abandoned (College) Station for (College) Park this offseason. In his defense, Williams left Aggieland after one of the school’s best seasons ever, winning 23 games and earning a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Because Maryland could not swipe Buzz until after the Sweet Sixteen was over, Texas A&M had to wait until early April to hire his successor: Bucky McMillan from Samford. The cupboard was bare when he arrived, and McMillan restocked admirably, pulling in promising reclamation projects like Pop Isaacs and Mackenzie Mgbako, but this is still a somewhat cobbled-together group.

That’s especially true when factoring in McMillan’s extreme style, known as Bucky Ball. He wants to speed up the game, pressure defensively to force turnovers and wear opponents down with waves of bodies. That is much harder to do in the SEC, a conference full of elite athletes, so it could take the astute McMillan time to properly calibrate his approach for this new level.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: McMillan is a fantastic basketball coach who has won big everywhere he has gone. The roster is deep enough to play his style, and the talent — Isaacs, Mgbako, Jacari Lane, Rylan Griffen — is legitimately impressive. The Aggies’ new era could start smoother than generally expected.

6. Oklahoma

Why They’ll Miss It: Porter Moser’s pattern of nonconference success continued last year, and the Sooners’ SEC swoon nearly cost them an NCAA Tournament bid. Oklahoma did not lose a single game until January, but Moser has yet to post even a .500 record in conference play.

Everyone who started more than four games for that at-large squad is now gone, and Moser had to swiftly find some alternatives in the portal. To his credit, he scooped up a talented quartet in Xzayvier Brown, Nijel Pack, Tae Davis and Derrion Reid.

Where Moser missed, though, was in finding another big man to reinforce the Sooners’ shaky interior. Oklahoma ranked 324th nationally and 13th in the SEC in 2-pointer percentage allowed, sorely lacking in paint intimidation. The Sooners also ranked 283rd in defensive rebound rate, easily the worst ranking of Moser’s 21-year head coaching tenure.

Mo Wague is a serviceable center, but when you commit 7.8 fouls per 40 minutes as he did last year, you struggle to stay on the floor. The depth behind him is shaky at best. In the uber-athletic SEC, it is incredibly difficult to survive while getting crushed around the basket. Some of the SEC’s 14 participants from this past March will fall out, and Oklahoma is certainly a candidate.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: The Sooners’ offense is going to be tough to stop. Pack is a proven power-conference scorer, and pairing him with Brown gives Moser two lethal perimeter threats who can also create for others. Plus, Dayton Forsythe is an emerging scoring threat. Reid and Davis will be a matchup nightmare duo at the forward spots, and the Sooners should get a defensive boost from Jadon Jones and Jeff Nwankwo, both of whom missed all of last season.

7. Memphis

Why They’ll Miss It: Head coach Penny Hardaway has made the NCAA Tournament three times in his seven seasons in Memphis. He has won 20-plus games in every season, but the Tigers’ inconsistency has found them on the outside looking in more often than not. Erasing those inconsistencies could be a challenge with an entirely new roster of transfer portal veterans, which may not fix some of the structural flaws of Hardaway-coached teams.

Most notably, his squads are extremely prone to turnovers, having ranked outside the top 240 in turnover rate six times and outside the top 300 four times. Speedy dynamo Dug McDaniel will take over the offense, and he can have some feast-or-famine to his game. Mid-major point forward Hasan Abdul Hakim is probably the next best playmaker on a roster thin on playmaking and decision-making.

The Tigers also seem to lack the interior fortitude of Hardaway’s best defenses. Even though 7-footer Aaron Bradshaw is in the fold, this squad has no Precious Achiuwa, Jalen Duren or Moussa Cisse. Bradshaw is also nowhere near the scorer that Dain Dainja was.

Why They Actually Will Make It Again: The Tigers probably have the most athletic team in the American again (South Florida is right up there, too), and Hardaway generally has a very stable floor — that’s how you avoid ever dipping below 20 wins. The nonconference schedule is laughably challenging, but that also means Memphis has a bevy of big win opportunities (at Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Louisville; vs. Purdue on a neutral court; home against Baylor, San Francisco and Vanderbilt).

Also considered: Clemson, Marquette, Texas, Maryland, Mississippi State.