So your "seedlings" were about 24" tall? Burying them deep like that is not necessarily the problem but I think if they are 24", they are quite big already. With that much to support, it's natural that there would be quite a bit of stress to the entire plant.

The other part that I can think of is that you saturated the soil, so there might be water retention issues. Normally a plant doesn't want to be overwatered but I'm not sure if you would see that result in about 1 day or not, especially with a larger plant.

Another thing I can think of is that with about 12" underground, maybe the soil is not really wet down there where the current roots are. Your top looks moist and saturated but maybe the bottom of the pot is not (even if water runs out, meaning that the water reached the bottom, it doesn't mean the soil down there is holding much of the water -- however, we can assume it is since you said you saturated it)

I could suggest that you might need to prune some of the growth off to let it adjust to the transplant. More roots will grow somewhere along the 12" that is underground but for now, you only have the original rootball that needs to support your relatively large plant.

Thank you for responding gardenper. My tomato plants in the pot did not make it, the ones I put in the ground are living, but not thriving by any means. I MAY have a couple of tomatoes before a frost hits :(