From perfection to sweating on Selection Sunday.

Miami (Ohio)’s perfect season ended with a shocking 87-83 loss to eighth-seeded UMass in the MAC Tournament quarterfinals Thursday.

The RedHawks blew an 11-point lead with 8:33 remaining, allowing a 29-14 run to close the game.

Miami (Ohio) is now 31-1, yet there will be consternation while it spends the next 72 hours waiting to learn its NCAA Tournament fate.

RedHawks head coach Travis Steele went 31 games and 363 days before addressing a losing locker room.

“It was a little bit of shell shock. We hate to lose, and our guys put a lot into it. So does UMass,” Steele said. “Not a lot was said. I think sometimes you’ve got to get the emotion out of you first before directing your team. So we’ll do that when we get back to the hotel.”

ESPN projected the RedHawks to be a No. 11 seed entering the day, which offered some wiggle room.

While it may seem strange to think that a 31-1 team may be on the bubble, the MAC does not provide many quality wins and Miami (Ohio) did not play a tough non-conference schedule.

The RedHawks rank 54th in the NET and 93rd in KenPom’s metrics.

Miami (Ohio) faced no Tier 1 teams and were 2-0 against Tier 2 squads.

“Undefeated means something, and so my hope is that they would make it,” said Grant Hill, who will call the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four for CBS and TNT Sports. “They’ve got a chip on their shoulder. I think to see them get into the tournament, they want to prove themselves against some of the bigger teams.”

There are those who argue that major-conference teams, despite having double-digit losses, should receive a bid over a team that did not face stiff competition en route to a 31-0 start.

Leading that charge is former Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, who has vouched for the Tigers — now coached by his son, Steven.

“If we’re selecting the 68 best teams, then Miami is going to have to win their tournament to qualify as a champion,” Pearl said recently.

“Because, as an at-large, they are not one of the best teams in the country.”

This led to to Miami (Ohio) athletic director David Sayler firing back at Pearl.

“@coachbrucepearl u are flat out wrong about @MiamiOH_BBall when u say we would finish last in the Big East,” Sayler wrote on X. “The disrespect is awful and u should not be near a TV studio covering this sport when u show your true colors! Even slipped in a “we” when talking about Auburn, nice work!”

Nevertheless, UMass coach Frank Martin — who led South Carolina to the Final Four in 2017 — echoed many in saying that Miami deserves a tournament bid.

“It’d be an embarrassment. A complete embarrassment if this league doesn’t get two teams in,” Martin said.

Steele, who was still reeling from the loss, wasn’t in the mood to hear about the MAC possibly having two teams in the field.

“I couldn’t care less about the MAC getting multi bids, just to be quite frank. I know the MAC probably wanted that,” he said. “It’s more about just putting ourselves in the best position, which I think we’ve done. Our guys have earned the right, in my opinion, to play the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m not letting anybody take (over) my mind. I’m not going to waste one second. When you’ve been fired before (at Xavier), you don’t care anymore. You don’t care what people think. You don’t have to be politically correct all that stuff, guys. I’m just telling you, I’m going to live life the way I live it unapologetically.”

Miami would have helped its standing had it not choked away this quarterfinal.

The RedHawks led, 69-58, with 8:33 remaining before their defense took the rest of the game off.

The Minutemen rallied to tie the game at 71 roughly three minutes later, and Daniel Hankins-Sanford’s layup with 29 seconds remaining gave UMass an 83-81 edge it didn’t relinquish.

— with AP