What is the value of making the NCAA Tournament?
For first-year Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller, not participating in March Madness would have defined the 2025-26 season as a failure. Yet, Miller also said after the SEC Tournament-opening loss to the Rebels that he was at peace if the Longhorns weren’t selected, ultimately sliding into the field as one of the last four teams in to land in the First Four for a second consecutive season.
“I have zero anxiety entering the weekend, simply because
of this — I came to Texas to build a championship program. There’s steps and foundations that have to be laid. Processes, failure, really learning what the SEC is really about. This has been very rewarding and enlightening and when you get to the finality of it, whatever happens, I’m at peace,” Miller said.
So if Miller was on the brink of failure with his first Texas team, then why would he be at peace?
Is anything short of a unexpected run in the tournament acceptable? What are the standards for the Longhorns?
The press release for Tuesday’s matchup against NC State in Dayton noted that Texas has made 24 appearances in the last 27 NCAA Tournaments, behind only five other programs — Gonzaga, Kansas, Duke, Michigan State, and Wisconsin.
It’s an impressive feat, but no one would say the Horns have achieved the same level of postseason success as those teams.
The Zags, for instance, went to the Elite Eight 27 years ago in the final season under Dan Monson, returning 12 times under Mark Few, making the Elite Eight five times, and making two appearances in the national championship game.
Roy Williams led the Jayhawks to a Sweet 16, a Final Four, and national runner-up finish before departing Lawrence, and Bill Self has won two national championships, finished as the runner up, made a Final Four, appeared in five Elite Eights, and made the Sweet 16 twice since taking over at Kansas.
Clearly, the Longhorns don’t belong in the same category as those two programs, especially with only one trip past the second round in the last 18 years.
Texas looks more like Wisconsin, which made the Sweet 16 in its first two years under Greg Gard, but hasn’t made it past the second round since 2017.
So how much does the experience matter? What does it say about a team that gets to the tournament?
“We’re thrilled to be a part of the NCAA Tournament,” Miller said on Sunday. “Personally, I never take that for granted. Going back as far as when I played in college at the University of Pittsburgh, it’s a moment like very few. It’s just the culmination of so much hard work and handling adversity and triumph and the togetherness that a long, long, grueling season can build. You hope that the reward at the end is having the opportunity to be a part of that field and advance and get that thrill, which is second to none in all of sports.”
Since 2008, it’s a thrill Texas has only experienced seven times, including the three wins to make the Elite Eight three years ago under interim head coach Rodney Terry.
Does the thrill hit the same when it’s in Dayton against another one of the last teams in the tournament?
Texas hasn’t experienced that yet after losing 86-80 to Miller’s Xavier team at UD Arena last year, a situation that Miller called ironic.
“I’ll just say this — I think that familiarity can be helpful. Our guys have been in UD Arena. They’ve been in the city of Dayton, and they kind of know what this First Four feels like,” Miller said,
Where does that fit into any definition of success — having familiarity with being one of the worst at-large teams in the field?
Making the First Four wasn’t enough to earn Terry another year on the Forty Acres, and although a First Four loss by Miller shouldn’t impact his job security, a cursory look at the other programs that make the tournament as frequently as the Longhorns illustrates the gap between simply making the field and making a run in the Big Dance. Or perhaps even the extent to which historic success over almost three decades doesn’t have much if anything to do with winning now, in an entirely different era of college basketball.
There is some upside for First Four teams. After all, Shaka Smart’s VCU team went from the First Four to the Final Four in 2011, a run of postseason success that Smart hasn’t been able to replicate in the 15 years since, and UCLA also went from the First Four to the Final Four in 2021.
In 12 of the last 14 years, at least one first First Four team made it to the second round, which Miller was on the wrong end of in 2016 when Wichita State beat Vanderbilt and then Miller’s Arizona team in the second round before losing to Miami.
Even winning two games takes a team playing at its best, and the Longhorns don’t fall into that category after losing five of its last six games this season, including three straight between the end of the regular season and the one-and-done appearance in the SEC Tournament.
So playing better is the first step for Texas to even begin to consider whether any of this actually means anything. Otherwise, the Horns will remain a team that can make the tournament and then do nothing in it, which shouldn’t be the standard in Austin.
“We’ve had a couple of really good practices. We’ve had some great meetings, and I think our team is really super excited about the opportunity to keep playing,” Miller said.
