NCAA Tournament Bracket Watch: These mid-majors aren’t ‘mid’: They’re making moves

It’s a tough era for the mid-major in men’s basketball. But it’s a good week. If you took it all in with the rest of the hoops junkies on Saturday, you saw as many replays of Miami — Ohio, not Florida — hitting wild shots to outlast Buffalo and stay undefeated as anything else.

That’s 19-0 Miami, fresh No. 25 in the Associated Press poll. For the first time since 1999. As someone who covered the Wally Szczerbiak-led RedHawks and their valiant effort to upset No. 1 seed Kentucky in St. Louis, it feels a lot longer than a quarter century and change ago.

This Travis Steele-coached team doesn’t have a surefire NBA lottery pick, but it does have six players averaging double figures, all of whom are shooting 39 percent or better from three-point range, making this the best shooting team in the country — 60.4 percent in effective field goal percentage, per KenPom, entering the week. In another exciting program milestone, Miami ranks No. 11 on Bracket Watch this week, just one line below fellow Miami.

MIAMI OHIO IS 19-0!

This team can’t lose 😭 pic.twitter.com/9EGqxpAV7g

— College Basketball Content (@CBBcontent) January 17, 2026

We’ll have to keep our Miami straight. And we had to make room for more mid-majors on the bracket this week. Welcome, San Diego State, after a huge home win over Mountain West rival New Mexico. Welcome, Santa Clara, after a home upset of West Coast Conference rival Saint Mary’s.

That’s three Mountain West bids, with Utah State leading the way; that’s three bids to the WCC, with Gonzaga (which is clearly not a mid-major, although it does play one during the conference season) leading the way. No conference currently has more than nine teams in the race.

There will of course be more options for large teams in the coming weeks. These spots will be difficult to keep, and Mountain West won’t approach the record six bids it received just two years ago. When you think of Szczerbiak today, it’s hard not to think of how many bluebloods would have offered how many millions after he scored 24.2 points per game in his junior season with Miami.

That’s why it’s so nice to see what his alma mater is doing now. And why – for the sake of mid-major morale – it would be great to see one of these teams, or a Yale, or a Murray State, or a Belmont, reach the second weekend of this year.