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Illinois State was one of the first teams left out of the 2017 NCAA Tournament field despite going 27-6 during the regular season and being one of the best defensive teams in the country.
The reason the Redbirds were excluded is that they only had one quality win all season (Wichita State).
It is not as simple, however, as saying that they should have scheduled better teams. High majors rarely want to play strong mid-majors because they view a loss to be more damaging than a win would be beneficial.
An understandably frustrated Muller tweeted this on Monday morning, seemingly challenging any power conference school to play his team.
ACC BIG 10 BIG 12 SEC PAC 12 BIG EAST. It's me again. Looking 4 home & home next year. Pls call me 4 chance 4 QUALITY road win, top 33 RPI pic.twitter.com/zYAZpR3kJn
— Dan Muller (@DanMuller) March 13, 2017
The tweet made the rounds on the college basketball Twitters, then most of us moved on with our day.
Until Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork responded on behalf of Rebels’ basketball coach Andy Kennedy.
.Hey @DanMuller I'm here with Coach Kennedy & since he doesn't do Twitter, he said to give us a call. We'd love to match up. https://t.co/eLrdBp0UIn
— Ross Bjork (@RossBjorkAD) March 13, 2017
Look at that!
Twitter brings everyone together. It can even find Power 5 coaches who aren’t too scared to play a good mid-major team.
Well done to all and we look forward to the upcoming Illinois State-Ole Miss home-and-home series.