43 Teams Have Yet to Dance:

There are 43 division I colleges who have not yet been accepted to the Dance.  A lot of these won't be eligible until 2018 because they only recently moved up from division II.  They have not experienced even a year long drought, so it's not like they've been suffering all this time.  Even so, starting next year, that drought timer starts ticking, and I'm sure all of them are eager to remove that blot, that asterisk, from their college's name.  There's nothing more embarrassing than not making the cut to a 68 team tournament every year across all time when all you have to do is win your conference tournament to secure an automatic bid.

For five teams to remove themselves from that ledger sheet is really impressive.  At this rate, so long as a ton of teams don't keep moving up to division I like they're doing next year, everyone's droughts will end in just nine more years.  This is a tournament that's gone on since 1939.  Which means there have been droughts that have been going on since 1939 (like for Army).  The idea that all of these shameful legacies will be gone in just nine more years, after lasting for 80 years, sounds nearly equivalent to 'the curse will be lifted tomorrow.'  First the Cubs, now Northwestern, the age of droughts is officially over.  

• America East Conference - Hartford, Maine, New Hampshire
  • UMass Lowell moved from Division II in 2013 and is not eligible for an NCAA tournament bid until 2018.
• Atlantic Sun Conference - Kennesaw State, Lipscomb, NJIT, South Carolina Upstate, Stetson
• Big Sky Conference - Sacramento State
• Big South Conference - Gardner-Webb, High Point, Longwood, Presbyterian
• Big West Conference - UC Riverside
• Colonial Athletic Association - Elon, William & Mary
• Horizon League - Youngstown State
• Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference - Quinnipiac
• Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference - Bethune-Cookman, Savannah State, UMES
• Northeast Conference - Bryant, Sacred Heart, St. Francis Brooklyn
• Ohio Valley Conference - SIU Edwardsville, Tennessee-Martin
• Patriot League - Army
• Southern Conference - The Citadel
• Southland Conference - Central Arkansas
  • Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word moved from Division II in 2013 and are not eligible for NCAA tournament bids until 2018.
• Southwestern Athletic Conference - Grambling
• Summit League – Denver, Fort Wayne, Omaha, South Dakota, Western Illinois
• Western Athletic Conference - Chicago State, UMKC, Utah Valley, UTRGV
  • Grand Canyon moved from Division II in 2013 and is not eligible for an NCAA tournament bid until 2018.