In one of the more heartbreaking and puzzling stories of March Madness, a conference tournament champion is being kept out of the NCAA Tournament next week.

Bellarmine knocked off Jacksonville 77-72 in the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament on Tuesday, but was forced to hand the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament to regular-season champion Jacksonville State. The trouble is the Knights are in the second of a four-year transition to Division I.

While top-seeded JSU fell at home 54-51 to the Dolphins on Saturday, and since Bellarmine is ineligible for the NCAA Tournament, the Gamecocks will go dancing.

Bellarmine is a recent Division II power and won the NCAA Tournament in 2011. It defeated Liberty, the other ASUN division champion, 53-50 on the road on Saturday.

All of this was no surprise to the Knights, who sent an earlier tweet that said, “Our postseason goal was to make everyone go read the rules.”