To the surprise of many, Southern Methodist University, or SMU as they are mostly known, didn't make the NCAA tournament. Their worthy record (23-9, 12-6), wins over Connecticut (twice), Cincinnati, and Memphis weren't enough to overcome a light non-conference schedule (though they fell to Virginia by just three points), losses to some of their conference's weakest teams, an end of the year swoon, and the NCAA Selection Committee's general lack of respect for the inaugural American Athletic Conference (AAC).

The Mustangs will be a one seed in the upcoming N.I.T. Tournament.

Rather than outrage, the mood on SMU's campus was of disappointment and regret, at least from the direction of second year head coach Larry Brown (winner of an NBA title and NCAA championship).

"I feel bad for our team and you fans," Brown said as they and the SMU team left their gathering during selection Sunday without a bid, ESPN reported. "I feel like we let you all down."

Brown moved on to list his team's missed opportunities.

"We could have beaten Louisville at home," he said. "We jumped on them, then got in foul trouble and acted silly," Brown said. "We didn't play our best game at Memphis, but we didn't get blown out by either team. I looked at our schedule; we didn't get blown out by anybody.

"We almost beat Virginia. We had possession down one. But when we didn't beat Houston, I kind of thought this could possibly happen. People have said we lost our last three games. We lost two of our last three against top-20 teams, and one of them might be the best team in America. I was hoping maybe they would look at it that way but I think they looked at [it] like we lost our last three games."

If SMU was a more veteran team, maybe they would have won a few more games (probably beating Houston in the tournament was all they would have needed to supplant Xavier or N.C. State on the bubble). Then again, a more veteran team wouldn't have as much potential going into next season.

The Mustangs return basically every relevant player from this season's rotation besides senior Nick Russell (9.6 ppg, 3.3 apg, 40 percent shooting). Their top two leading scorers will be back for at least another year, sophomores Nic Moore (13.7 ppg, 4.8 apg, 47 percent shooting) and Markus Kennedy (12.1 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 54 percent shooting). Also in the mix will be rising sophomore's and last year's top two recruits Keith Frazier and Sterling Brown, who struggled somewhat this year, but were highly regarded coming out of high school (especially Frazier).

Most excitingly, Brown brought in the school's highest rated recruit in team history: 6-foot-5 point guard Emmanuel Mudiay from Dallas, TX (number five in ESPN's top 100). Amazingly, five players in the top 15 are from Texas.

Undoubtedly, SMU will enter next season as a ranked and hungry team. Brown will only need to teach Mudiay about the sting of missed opportunities.