A number of ESPN analysts reacted to the NCAA tournament bracket following its reveal Sunday night.

Looking at the committee’s bubble teams and the last four in (Mississippi State, Pittsburgh, Arizona State, Nevada) as well as the first four out (Oklahoma State, Rutgers, North Carolina, Clemson), ESPN’s Jay Bilas, Seth Greenberg and LaPhonso Ellis named the teams they think were incorrectly left out of the NCAA tournament.

“I’d take Nevada out and I’d probably take Arizona State out. I’d replace them with Rutgers and Clemson, off the top of my head,” Greenberg said.

“I’d replace them with Oklahoma State and Clemson,” Bilas added.

“Oklahoma State because of the conference that they’re playing in and the number of Quad 1 wins that they’ve head. Oklahoma (State) for Arizona (State), and Clemson for Nevada,” Ellis chimed in.

Like ESPN colleague Dick Vitale, Bilas pointed to Clemson’s head-to-head success against NC State – a team the Tigers beat three times this season by a combined 65 points – as one of the problems he has with the Tigers being left out of the tournament.

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.

Bilas also doesn’t understand Clemson being knocked for its non-conference strength of schedule when you consider the Tigers’ overall resume.

“What I don’t get is the Clemson thing if people want to talk about their non-conference schedule and they’re saying well, they’re ranked this in non-conference schedule. So what? It’s the total body of work,” Bilas said. “How many times did they tell us it’s the total body of work. So what difference does it make where the games fall, whether they came in conference or out of conference, if your total body of work is good enough, and I believe that Clemson’s was good enough.

“Like Dick’s point about common sense, I think it comes down to which teams do you think are better. That’s the point. … Now look, if you can’t decide between two teams — you think they’re equal as to which team is better — and then you have to go to the paper and start saying OK, this factor, that factor, this one wins. I get that. But it’s not this close with regard to who’s better, and I’m sensitive to the whole ‘we beat NC State three times’ thing, because I think that’s fair. I think head to head’s a big factor.”

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