March Madness will begin the Sweet Sixteen round next Thursday. Now that yesterday's games have been completed, three quarters of the field has been sent home. Below is a table of those teams that remain, along with their conference affiliations, and their seeds within the region to which they were assigned when there were 16 teams per region.
Before getting to the lessons I'd like to draw from this information, let's look at a bit of recent Tournament history. It was just three years ago, in 2023, when Florida Atlantic University made it to the Final Four, whereupon they faced San Diego State, which won that game. Neither of those teams made it to the Tournament this year. I know FAU because my parent's condo in Boca Raton was near Glades Road and I would sometimes drive by the entrance to the FAU campus. But I'm guessing that most college basketball fans wouldn't have heard of FAU prior to that appearance in the Final Four, so for me they qualified as a legit Cinderella team then.
In this year's Tournament, High Point, another school most fans hadn't heard of (including me), would have qualified as a Cinderella team had they made it to the Sweet Sixteen. They were competitive in their game against Arkansas, so I surely don't want to pooh-pooh them. But from my perspective, it was close but no cigar. Miami of Ohio, which did win its play-in game, would have qualified as a Cinderella team if they had made it to the round of 32. But they were soundly beaten by Tennessee.
All the remaining teams are from power conferences. And while there are a few teams with unimpressive seeds, Texas in particular may be of interest because it had to with in the play-in game (First Four), which implies that those making the seedings weren't sure whether they deserved to be in or not. But they are a big school with a rich sports history (though more in football than in basketball). So, no way are they a Cinderella Team. Likewise, Iowa doesn't qualify as a Cinderella team even though they have fewer resources than Texas. They are a Big Ten team. No team from a power conference can be considered a Cinderella team.
Now, let me get to a conjecture. Covid disrupted college basketball. Indeed, the Tournament was cancelled in 2020. There were strict protocols enforced in the subsequent years to allow play. How it influenced outcomes, I can't say, but surely it had some impact. NIL started somewhat before Covid, but it is my belief that it really took off when the Player Portal began, which was in July 2021. And the consequence is that most of the better players who enter the portal, particularly those who have been around for a while, will end up on a good team in a power conference. It makes it less likely that teams from other conferences will make it to the Sweet Sixteen. The commentators were saying during the round of 64 that Mid-Major teams were holding up their end. But all of those teams are gone from the Tournament now. And my guess is that over the next few years we are unlikely to see them in a Sweet Sixteen game.
Here is something else. I'm nauseated by all the sports betting and really wonder whether either players, coaches, or refs could fix the outcomes of games without it being immediately obvious that they were doing so. (For example, what counts as a foul versus what is incidental contact is one of those things that clearly is more art than science. Limiting playing time for a player who is in foul trouble is another one of those.) A team from a non-power conference which wins its first game may then attract some fans who want to bet on it in the next-round game. If that happens some of the players on that team, who may not be getting big bucks from NIL, may want some way to cash in on their recent success, especially if they don't see themselves as candidates for the NBA draft. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Fans want to root for the underdog. Showing my Big Ten loyalty, last night I watched Florida play Iowas and there I rooted hard for the Hawkeyes. This is so even though when Illinois plays Iowa I'm completely for Illinois and totally against Iowa. But Iowa was a big underdog in that game with Florida and it was compelling viewing. Some other schools that are blue bloods in college basketball had similar experiences to Florida. North Carolina's loss to VCU is one example. From a seeding viewpoint, neither Kentucky's loss to Iowa State nor Kansas' loss to St. Johns can be thought of as the underdog vanquishing the favorite. But in terms of the history of the teams performances in the Tournaments, there still was a bit of David vs. Goliath in those games. So, I'm not yet ready to argue that NIL coupled with the Transfer Portal will tend to make the blue blood schools reliable favorites in the NCAA Tournament. The talent pool itself seems sufficiently diffuse that other things than the school brand should matter for which become the better teams. And I'm guessing that this year fans will be satisfied with the Tournament, even if there is no team in the Sweet Sixteen that qualifies as a Cinderella.
But if the situation doest repeat itself, fans may become unhappy with the outcome. What then?
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