24 Win NCAA Tournament Teams

Let's take a closer look at the 24-win group, since it's the first group that we see a significant split at. Again, the overall percentage:

24 wins - 61.29 percent (19/31)

The question at hand is whether a 24-win team with NO quality wins has made it as an at-large team. I only have three years of data to work with, but parsing through things, here are the 24-win teams that have made it to the NCAAs in that time frame:

Murray St. OVC 24-7 2006
South Alabama SB 24-7 2006
Louisville BE 24-10 2007
Oral Roberts Sum 24-9 2008
Austin Peay OVC 24-11 2008
UAB CUSA 24-7 2006
Tennessee SEC 24-11 2007
Clemson ACC 24-10 2008
Montana BSky 24-7 2006
Air Force MWC 24-7 2006
Marquette BE 24-10 2007
Cal St. Fullerton BW 24-9 2008
Old Dominion CAA 24-9 2007
MD Baltimore County AE 24-9 2008
Connecticut BE 24-9 2008
San Diego St. MWC 24-9 2006
Pacific BW 24-8 2006
Notre Dame BE 24-8 2007
Long Beach St. BW 24-8 2007

I'm doing all of this by hand, so thankfully, we can eliminate a few teams right away. Louisville, Marquette, UConn, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Clemson play in power conferences. Oral Roberts, Cal St. Fullerton, MD Baltimore County, Long Beach State, Murray State, South Alabama and Austin Peay won their conference tournament.

That leaves only a few teams. 2007 Old Dominion played in the Colonial Athletic Association, so their conference schedule is similar to the A-10, and they did receive an at-large bid. They beat Georgetown in mid-November, but outside of that their "best" out-of-conference wins are against mid-tier teams: UAB and Toledo. They got blown out by Virginia Tech, and lost to Marist and Clemson. Their bid is seemingly due to a late season, conference play run, as they won their last 11 conferences games before going 1-1 in the CAA tournament.

Montana 2006 won their conference tournament, but were seeded ahead of a few at-large bids. They had one good win, against Stanford, who did not make the tourney. The next-best team on Montana's schedule, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was a loss, and WM did not make the tournament either.

Likewise, San Diego State won their conference tournament but earned a No. 11 seed, despite a less than stellar regular season schedule. They were blown out in December by California, Providence and Washington. Their only win against a tournament at-large team was a conference schedule split with Air Force (see below for more about them).

UAB 2006 played a fairly challenging schedule, and had some good wins - Memphis once in conference play, Oklahoma State and Old Dominion out-of-conference. Air Force 2006 lost in the opening round of their conference tournament, but had good wins against Nevada, Georgia Tech, BYU, St. Mary's, the aforementioned San Diego State and Miami.

So, yes, it's possible to make the NCAA tournament without really having a marquee, or even a decent win. But as a note, the Rams can only lose a max of three games, not counting the conference tournament, and still win 24 games. They play seven games against the cream of the A-10's crop: Xavier, Dayton, St. Joe's, UMass and Temple.