Miami (Ohio), no longer perfect, now sweats out Selection Sunday: ‘How are we not in it?’

CLEVELAND — Miami (Ohio) hadn’t lost in 362 days. As the RedHawks’ undefeated season continued, the school’s swim team showed up behind the basket wearing Speedos, and before anyone knew it, the men’s basketball coach was promising to wear one on Selection Sunday if his team was still undefeated.

But Miami coach Travis Steele can, if he so chooses, keep his clothes on. The RedHawks finally lost a game Thursday, snapping a season-long, 31-game winning streak, and it happened at a bad time for a mid-major trying to crack the NCAA Tournament next week.

“I try to look at it a different way — how are we not in it?” Steele said after Miami’s 87-83 loss to the University of Massachusetts in a Mid-American Conference quarterfinal.

“Man, I’d be very, very surprised if we are not.”

The RedHawks entered Thursday’s conference tournament game ranked 20th nationally and as just the 21st team in Division I men’s basketball history to go undefeated during the regular season. No one else had done it in the MAC. Now, they’ll have to wait with stomachs full of nerves until 6 p.m. ET Sunday to learn if they’ll become the first team from the MAC since, get this, the 1999 RedHawks team with Wally Szczerbiak, to claim an at-large bid into March Madness.

“I could care less about the MAC getting another bid,” said Steele, who has made for must-watch television all by himself during a magical season that he hopes is not finished.

“It’s more about just putting ourselves in that position, and I think we’ve done that,” he continued. “Our guys have earned the right, in my opinion, to play in the NCAA tournament.”

Miami was the only team in DI men’s basketball to avoid a loss this regular season. Typically, if a team makes it to mid-March without losing, a spot in March Madness is guaranteed.

The RedHawks still appear to be in good shape amid what’s considered a weak bubble, but the questions are going to swirl until the selection show starts because they have one of the lowest strength-of-schedule ratings in the sport. Miami entered play Thursday rated 344th out of 365 teams in strength of schedule, according to the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), which measures a team’s schedule strength by calculating the difficulty to win each game for a tournament-caliber team.

“It would be a complete embarrassment if this league doesn’t get two teams in,” said UMass coach Frank Martin, the former South Carolina and Kansas State coach who said he was “more nervous” for the Miami game Thursday than any in his coaching career, which included a Final Four berth with the South Carolina Gamecocks in 2017.

Martin, overcome with emotion thinking about his eighth-seeded (in the MAC) Minutemen recovering from an 11-point second-half deficit to upset the RedHawks, added after a long pause, “I feel bad for Miami, but I’m happy for our guys.”

Miami, which had won its last three games by 2 points apiece and had nine wins this season in overtime or on the game’s final possession, led the Minutemen by 11 with 8:19 to go before UMass came storming back. An 11-2 run over the next three minutes enabled the Minutemen to tie the score at 71 with 5:22 left, and then guard Marcus Banks’ 3-pointer with 3:54 put them ahead, 77-76. They never trailed again.

UMass (17-15) was led by Leonardo Bettiol’s 25 points, and Banks added 18 points. Miami sophomore Brant Byers finished with 17 points. The RedHawks were destroyed on the glass, 41-24. Miami beat UMass by 2 in January and by 9 on the road last month.

“It was an amazing opportunity to get to play an undefeated team and being the first team that beats them all season long,” Bettiol said. “But at the end of the day, it’s just another game. You can’t really look at records or anything.”

The last time the RedHawks lost a game was here in Cleveland, at Rocket Arena, in last season’s MAC tournament final on March 15, 2025, when they blew an 18-point lead to Akron. You can choose your own adjective to describe what happened next.

On Jan. 27, as fate would have it, Miami hosted UMass in the game the RedHawks ultimately won by 2. The Miami men’s swim team also showed up for that game in Speedos, skull caps and goggles. A few days later, with the RedHawks already the sport’s lone undefeated team, Steele was asked during an appearance on ESPN’s “College GameDay” if he would wear a Speedo for the tournament selection show on CBS.

“Done deal,” he said.

Steele, 44, took over at Miami in 2022 after he was fired from the same job at Xavier. The RedHawks won 12 games in his first season and a program-record 25 last year, setting the stage for the campaign he hopes will continue next week. Miami averaged 2,600 fans for its home games last year, but this season set attendance records all over the place, from the 10,640 total fans who attended a win over Northern Illinois, to the 5,800 students (a third of the student body) who showed up for the UMass game.

Opposing teams distributed free beer to their fans when Miami was in town for road games, Steele said. Charged atmospheres became customary when the RedHawks showed up. During a recent win at Western Michigan, Steele was so frustrated with the game officials that he blasted the DJ’s speaker and knocked it over while storming to the locker room. The RedHawks also survived an overtime scare on the road at their archrival, Ohio University, last weekend to complete the regular season with no blemishes.

“It’s been a blast,” Steele said, “Our guys have really enjoyed the ride.”

Thursday, though, the RedHawks did not enjoy. Not only were they outrebounded nearly two-to-one, and not only did they blow a double-digit lead in the second half, but all the experience gained from those close wins didn’t pay off when they needed it.

Steele described an emotional, quiet postgame locker room in which his players had to shake off the feeling of a loss for the first time in a calendar year, made heavier by the unknown it caused for their NCAA Tournament fates.

“We’re upset that we lost this game,” said Miami’s Peter Suder, the team’s leading scorer, who contributed 10 points on eight shots against the Minutemen. “It obviously hurts. No one likes losing. But we had a great regular season, and we proved that we’re a really good team and we’re really fun to watch.”

Does the selection committee agree, and is it enough for its members to put Miami’s name on a bracket line early Sunday evening? Those are the questions left for the RedHawks to ponder in what is sure to be a long three days.

Said Miami guard Trey Perry: “It’s out of our control now, gotta see what happens on Sunday.”