Tracking the teams that have never made the gentlemen’s NCAA tournament

In the long story of men’s NCAA tournament, a field that has now grown to 68 teams, there is still a surprising number of programs waiting to participate in their first March madness.

Siue is the latest team coming out of this club. They secured an NCAA tournament bid for the first time in 2025.

If you go back to the start of the tournament in 1939, thousands of total places have been available. Yet, of the hundreds of men’s basketball teams currently in division in, some eligible programs have never played in the NCAA tournament. Note that several programs are eligible for completing their transition to DI.

Kennesaw State left the list after the qualification for the 2023 NCAA tournament. The owls secured their first performance in the tournament with a big win in the South Tournament Championship and Auto Bud.

Two teams qualified for the first time in 2022: Longwood and Bryant. By 2021, the Grand Canyon and Hartford did the tournament for the first time.

Below is the full list of teams that have never reached the Lord’s NCAA tournament. A reminder that wins a conference tournament gives a qualified team an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament.

*Qualified for the first time for the 2024-25 season after completing the transition to DI

Note: East Texas A&M, Le Moyne, Lindenwood, Mercyhurst, Queens, Southern Indiana, Stonehill, St. Thomas and West Georgia are not eligible for the 2025 tournament as they still end the transition to DI.

The tournament has grown from a first eight team that moved to 16 in 1951 and then grows steadily until 1985 when it reached its familiar format of 64.

Play-in games have appeared over the years, but became a permanent fixture in 2001, when the total number of teams came to 65. In 2011, the game was expanded to create the first four, an opening round that helped fill the round of 64. Thus, since 2011, 68 teams have made the NCAA tournament every year.

Two teams have made the NCAA tournament, but have not been part of the bracket, as most of us know. Houston Baptist made the preliminary round in 1984 when there were 53 teams in the tournament but lost to Alcorn State. Alabama A&M won SWAC in 2005 and served the school’s lonely automatic bid, but fell to Oakland 79-69 in the Tournament’s play-in game.

There is another small but more impressive group included on this list – the four teams that have been eligible for each NCAA tournament, but have failed to reach it.

In 2017, Northwestern received plenty of attention as Wildcats-earlier one of the five original teams that never made the tournament-not only qualified for their first tournament ever, but actually picked up a win and gave any runner-up gonzaga a race for her money in the second round.

The other four teams that have been eligible for each tournament and not danced once are Army, William & Mary and Citadel.

In 1968, Army actually qualified for the NCAA tournament, but coach Bobby Knight thought the black knights would have a better shot in NIT and rejected the invitation. Army lost his first match in Nit to Notre Dame.