On Sunday night, there was another surprise in what’s been a men’s basketball season that nobody expected.

For a change, it was a good one.

The Commodores learned that they’d be in the NCAA Tournament field of 68. They’ll play Wichita State on Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio, in the NCAA’s “First Four” event.

Should Vanderbilt win, it will play six-seed Arizona on Friday, March 17, in Providence, R.I.

With an RPI of 61 and a record of 7-10 against RPI top-100 teams, things weren’t looking up for the Commodores, especially with that last defeat coming to Kevin Punter-less Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament.

The two most well-known bracketologists, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and CBS Sports’s Jerry Palm, both had VU out of the bracket.

But when CBS announced the field, it started with the South Region, and the Vanderbilt-Wichita State game was the last match-up revealed within that region.

The Commodores will play in the NCAA Tournament’s second game. It’ll take place on Tuesday after the Florida Gulf Coast-Fairleigh Dickinson contest—that one tips off at 5:40 Central—and will be televised by truTV.

Joe Castiglione, the chair of the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Committee, did not address Vanderbilt directly when featured on CBS’s Selection Sunday show.

But when Castiglione addressed various situations, the picture of why the ‘Dores got in became a bit more clear. South Carolina’s dis-inclusion? Castiglione cited just one win over top-50 RPI teams.

Tulsa’s inclusion? Tulsa beat four top-50 RPI teams, including SMU (RPI: 13).

No Monmouth? The Hawks “were right there,” but Castiglione cited Monmouth’s three losses to teams outside the RPI top 200.

How about South Carolina, which beat Vanderbilt? It had just one top-50 RPI win.

St Mary’s and its 38 RPI? The Gaels “… didn’t do enough to test themselves,” Castiglione said. Likely, that referred to the fact that St. Mary’s had an overall strength of schedule of 148 (according to CBS) and out-of-conference strength of schedule of 165 (according to ESPN). The Gaels’ only two wins of consequence came over Gonzaga (No. 45 RPI).

Syracuse, with its 72 RPI, was not only a surprise entry to the field, but it was in as a 10-seed. But the Orange beat teams of consequence: Texas A&M (RPI: 18), Duke (20), Notre Dame (31) and Connecticut (32), and beat the first two away from home.

Michigan joined Vanderbilt in a Tuesday game in Dayton. The Wolverines (57 RPI) made a late push that included four huge wins: Maryland (14), Purdue (15), Indiana (24) and Texas (27).

Wichita State’s inclusion was also not a slam-dunk. The Shockers had just one great win, which came against No. 8 Utah. WSU also beat Northern Iowa (70) and Evansville twice (93).

“Well, there’s a situation where we were monitoring this team closely all year,” Castiglione said. “They went through a lot of injuries. They went 21-3 when they had their full complement of players, and the metrics we use to assess teams all ranked them very high. We looked at both the team they are and the metrics and they were one of the last teams in the field, but it was a very close vote.”

Reading between the lines, three things became clear: the committee wanted teams to test themselves, to win at least a couple of them, and that injuries that caused key players to miss games mattered.

Vanderbilt, with a No. 40 strength of schedule and nearly half its games (15) against top-75 RPI teams, and eight of them away from its home floor, certainly did the first.

As for the second, wins over Kentucky (11) and Texas A&M (18) appeared to be just enough.

And, VU also had injuries to starters Luke Kornet and Matthew Fisher-Davis that cost both games.

Other computer rankings—that’s something that the NCAA admitted to consulting last year—certainly hurt neither Vanderbilt, nor Wichita State. Respective rankings in Ken Pomeroy for VU and WSU were 27 and 12; in ESPN’s BPI, 24 and 25 and in Jeff Sagarin’s rankings, 23 and 25.

Castiglione said the committee's last four out were St. Bonaventure (no out-of-conference wins in the top-80 was the reason cited to ESPN's Andy Katz), Monmouth, South Carolina and Valparaiso.

Tulsa was the last team to make the field, Castiglione told Katz.

Vanderbilt started the season ranked in both polls, but slid out around the New Year and never came close to returning.

The two time that Vanderbilt and WSU last faced each other was in the NIT in Nashville in 2005, where this happened: