High Point University put its name on the map in a huge way on the opening afternoon of the 2026 men’s NCAA Tournament, with the first tournament win in program history in an upset over Wisconsin.
Coming off a college basketball season in which mid-major resumes were once again a hotly contested topic of conversation, High Point head coach Flynn Clayman had a clear message to deliver in his postgame interview with TNT Sports reporter Jared Greenberg.
“It looks pretty obvious to me that high-majors need to play mid-majors early in the season,” Clayman said. “Because they said we didn’t play nobody. We played somebody now.”
Clayman likened his team’s struggles to schedule games against top teams to that of Miami (Ohio), the Mid-American Conference standout that was on the NCAA tourney bubble despite a 31-1 record.
“Nobody would play us. Just like they wouldn’t play Miami (Ohio),” Clayman hollered as he was engulfed by his team’s celebration. “But they gotta play us in this tournament.”
The Panthers beat 5-seed Wisconsin by one point, owing in large part to a 15-40 mark from three-point range, becoming the first of the bettor favorite 12-seeds to notch an upset. Aside from winning the Big South in the regular season and the conference tournament, High Point did not play a single “Quad 1” win and suffered two “Quad 2” losses in non-conference play.
In a postgame press conference, Clayman expounded on his point.
“It’s pretty obvious to me that something needs to be done about this non-conference scheduling. High Point and Miami (Ohio) are 2-0 in Quad 1 games,” Clayman said. “We couldn’t get games. They couldn’t get games… We won 22 of our last 23 games, and we didn’t move up one spot in the metrics. Not one.”
Miami had an equally iffy resume, with no Quad 1 games until beating SMU in the First Four this week. Earlier this month, Miami athletic director David Sayler appeared on ESPN Radio and explained the difficulty his program faced scheduling high-major teams.
“Because it’s turned into not just are you going to win or lose the game, it also matters how close the game is now,” Sayler explained. “The metrics have gotten so detailed that if you come out and light them up and score a bunch of points, and they barely win, that’s not even good enough for the power four schools anymore.
“So, sometimes these coaches have egos, they have different situations, they just don’t want to find the games. I know for a fact [Miami head coach Travis Steele] tried multiple times with multiple people, trying to put this thing together, and nobody wanted a part of the RedHawks.”
Elsewhere in the MAC, former Fox Sports Radio host Doug Gottlieb decried the very same thing.
“KenPom is bullsh*t,” Gottlieb said in a press conference, referencing the popular college basketball stats platform.
“Because it takes into account how much you lose by. And it has no context for who you have, who the other team has. So in our league, OK, KenPom gives you benefits because Oakland plays like seven buy games. And so if you get close in those buy games and those teams you play in a buy game have great years, your numbers go up. So we get dinged.”
By overcoming an early deficit to upset the Badgers, Clayman’s High Point squad has put up as good an argument as any for the selection committee and college basketball media to take a closer look at the quality of teams beyond their schedule.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.