The 5 Best Teams Left Out of the 2019 NCAA Tournament

1. Texas

The biggest snub of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, according to our nERD metric, was the Texas Longhorns. On first glance, you may think that this is a pretty straightforward team to dismiss. After all, they finished just 16-16 and 8-10 in the Big 12 Conference.

That .500 record, however, masked a lot of quality wins. This is a squad who beat several tournament teams, including the North Carolina Tar Heels (a 1 seed, 5th in nERD), Purdue Boilermakers (3 seed, 9th in nERD), Kansas Jayhawks (4 seed, 15th in nERD) and Iowa State Cyclones (6 seed, 16th in nERD) among others.

At 29th in our nERD rankings, Texas was ranked higher than nine teams who received a single-digit seed, including the 7 seed Cincinnati Bearcats. The Longhorns may not have progressed far in the tournament had they made it -- especially given a late-season injury to Big 12 Freshman of the Year and potential NBA lottery pick Jaxson Hayes -- but our rankings say that they should have at least been given a chance to get out on the dance floor.