Coach, can I see your ticket?

Usually, big names team need only a marginal resume to be invited to the NCAA tournament, especially those that have an established resume going back 15 years. It's a free pass system that has gone on when there was far less parity, and overrated coaches feasted on such. Here's a couple of teams that would generally make it, but now have only the hopes of winning their conference tournaments to get in.

Ohio State and Florida. I'm going to lump these two in together, because they're about to be the first pair of teams that don't make the tournament a year after being NCAA Finalists. Don't kid yourself Ohio State fans (Ed: *cries*), there's really no chance that the Buckeyes make the tournament, after losing four in a row, including to low lives such as @Michigan, @Minnesota, and @Iowa. This resume contains exactly zero good wins, and there's no reason to believe that a team that put itself in such a position can start winning big games. Ditto Florida, although they can hang their hat on that awesome Vanderbilt win, giving them uh, one win against ranked opponents this season. They have 5 losses in their last 8 games crushing hopes of what could otherwise be considered a bubble resume. How ironic that both of these teams have less-than-blistering records in two of the worst basketball conferences this season. Six losses in the SEC, and 8 losses in the Big 10 is both damaging, and revealing for Florida and Ohio State respectively. Maybe they can meet in the NIT Finals. Oh, and Florida, losing to OSU doesn't help.

Syracuse. I can't imagine what kind of homer has them in. They were barely a bubble team before a bad, yet telling loss to Pittsburgh at home; a game the Panthers finished with an 18-2 run. The Orange are 17-12, and picked a bad year to be 7-9 in the Big East, historically an extremely strong conferences has battled for supremacy this year. They have two more games, against Seton Hall and Marquette, that could at best get them to .500 in league play, and bad losses that include: @South Florida, @Rhode Island, and OSU (n), as well as three straight. They have a total of one win against ranked opponents, and that was Georgetown at home, a team many feel is overrated, and that's all to speak of for anything to impress the committee. In fact, Syracuse is on the verge of not making the Big East tournament, which might dash their hopes for the NIT.

Kentucky. There are some people that have drank enough blue Kool Aid based Harry Buffalo to delude themselves into the fact that Kentucky is a tournament team. Just look at their blistering conference record, 10-4! That's fantastic! Their turnaround has been phenomenal, and fans can now put away their shotguns so that Billy Gillispie can finally sleep at night, but it came just too little too late. they started the year in such a deep hole, with so many bad losses that their 16-11 record just won't pull them into the Big Dance. Just take a look: Gardner-Webb (16), UNC (11), @Indiana (19), UAB (3), @Houston (14), and besides GW, that was four losses in a row. The fact that their conference record is so good just speaks to the relative weakness of the SEC, something even hardened football fans have a hard time arguing. Football: yes; Basketball: no. It doesn't help losing your best player (Patterson) and losing earlier at Vanderbilt by 40. Save for a magical run in the weak SEC Tournament, the Wildcats are partying at home.