You had to be good enough to qualify...
by Scoop80 (2020-11-20 20:05:31)
Edited on 2020-11-20 20:06:37

In reply to: Sweet 16 appearances when it was 32 teams  posted by Ajax

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Carr's 2 S16 teams and the '74, '76, '77, and '81 teams (each of which won 1 game before losing in S16) all belonged there. Maybe the '75 team was borderline, but they did beat Wooden's final UCLA team, which went on to win the title.

Put another way, the '73 team made it to a 16 team NIT (when the NCAAs only had 25 teams). Once there, they beat UL and UNC teams* in consecutive games. Those 2 teams would've easily qualified for a 64 team NCAA, and USC (ND's first round victim) probably would've, too.

*In Digger's first ND postseason appearance, he beat D. Crum and D. Smith in consecutive games. Let that sink in for a minute.

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