Clemson’s omission from this year’s NCAA Tournament had more than Brad Brownell and his team frustrated.

Longtime ESPN college basketball broadcaster and analyst Dick Vitale made an appearance on SportsCenter to react to the bracket following its reveal Sunday night. Asked by host Rece Davis if anything surprised him about the teams that were or weren’t selected, Vitale sounded off on Clemson being left out of the 68-team field.

Vitale pointed to the Tigers’ head-to-head success against NC State – a team the Tigers beat three times this season by a combined 65 points – as his primary issue with it. The Wolfpack, who also had the same number of wins and three fewer Quad 1 wins than Clemson, made the tournament as an 11 seed in the South Region.

“What do you think the feeling must be at Clemson when they see NC State there, who they beat not once, not twice, but three times,” Vitale said. “And then you see the margin of victories. The margin of victories in those games were better than 20 points twice and double figures the third time as well. I don’t understand the logic there.

“(Clemson) won 23 games. Yeah, they had a couple of bad losses. But I don’t know how you can really justify that. That really troubles me.”

NC State and Pittsburgh, a First Four team that Clemson also beat in the teams’ only meeting, were two of the five ACC teams to make the tournament.

Vitale said he was also disappointed to see Rutgers and Vanderbilt left out. They were among the selection committee’s first four teams left out along with Clemson and North Carolina. Pitt joined Arizona State, Mississippi State and Nevada as the last four at-large teams into the field.

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