Princeton dealt fourth-seeded UCLA with backdoor cuts in a first-round upset. Bryce Drew burying a ringer that made Valparaíso a March tradition. The San Pedro Peacocks defied the long odds of a 15th place finish and strutted their way into the Elite Eight. These Cinderella stories probably blew us away, but they also helped a generation of American sports fans fall in love with March Madness.
Now, however, in the NIL era of college basketball, that “anything can happen” feeling is fading. Shocking upsets are declining and fewer double-digit seeds survive as the financial and talent chasm between the power conferences and the rest of Division I widens.
Last year's men's tournament produced just 13 outright wins by underdogs, tying the fewest since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The Elite Eight was comprised solely of the top 3 seeds, tying it with 2007 as the most chalky quarterfinal round in tournament history. Additionally, for the first time in modern tournament history, we have witnessed three consecutive tournaments without several double-digit seeds reaching the Sweet 16. The only double-digit seed last year to advance to the Sweet 16 was No. 10 Arkansas and coach John Calipari, not exactly an upstart from a small conference.
Coaches, administrators and analysts across the sport point to NIL, the transfer portal and risk-averse scheduling as forces reshaping the college basketball landscape and turning the NCAA Tournament into more of a showcase for superpowers than a stage for the improbable.
“We've had a lack of NCAA tournament upsets at times in past tournaments,” said Kevin Pauga, Michigan State associate athletic director and scheduling mastermind. “I am of the opinion that it is premature for us to make grandiose statements that things have changed significantly, while recognizing that the data from the last two years is clear.”
The trend toward fewer surprises is not limited to March.
This regular season began with ranked teams winning the first 96 games against unranked teams, the longest streak at any point in a season in the history of the AP poll, according to ESPN Research. The streak ended with unranked Seton Hall's victory over No. 23 NC State on Nov. 24 at the Maui Invitational.
Upsets, especially by small-conference underdogs, decreased dramatically over the course of the season. Only 29 small conference teams beat power conference teams this season, a 58.9% decrease from the 2021-22 season, when schools began compensating players for NIL rights.
“Given the way players can move from one school to another, at all levels, I think it's certainly possible that roster building and management has a lot to do with this,” Pauga said.
Last June, the NCAA settled an antitrust lawsuit that allowed schools to pay athletes directly, giving power conference programs another avenue to leverage their financial advantage and attract the major leagues' best players. According to Opendorse, a clearinghouse used by schools to process NIL transactions, less than 10% of players who earned at least $100,000 through NIL competed outside of the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten or SEC during the 2023-24 season.
The financial gap consolidates talent at the top and often leaves mid-level coaches with off-season rebuilds. Some began this season with five new starters, and several mid-level coaches have talked about selling their programs as avenues to boost conferences, even though they sacrifice continuity, a strength of past Cinderellas that made the tournaments.
“A lot of us at our level lose all these players at a higher level and we don't have the money to replace them,” a head coach at a mid-major Division I program told ESPN. “Tournament upsets don't happen anymore because there's a big difference in money. Now we all have a lot of bills to pay.”
The programming strategy has also changed in the new landscape. Teams from power conferences are playing fewer regular-season games against non-power opponents, opting instead for high-profile matchups at neutral sites. Games between the two groups fell from 666 in 2023-24 to 616 this season.
Several mid-level coaches have said that top programs are increasingly targeting only teams in Quadrant 1 or Quadrant 4 of the NCAA NET rankings, while avoiding teams in the middle of the pack. Miami (Ohio) head coach Travis Steele said scheduling became much more difficult after his team won 25 games last season. “Everyone who took my calls years before, no one took those calls anymore,” Steele said on “The Field of 68” podcast. “I couldn't even get a refund [call]”.
Pauga, who in addition to his duties at Michigan State helps conferences with scheduling, acknowledges that some programs might be avoiding dangerous mid-majors, but says the system still rewards playing against quality opponents. The Spartans' non-conference schedule included a mix of heavyweights like Duke and Arkansas, along with a handful of schools currently in Quadrant 3, like Cornell and Toledo.
“This idea that you shouldn't play on good teams [from non-power conferences] “It's not accurate,” Pauga said. “Are there some schools in this sport that are avoiding teams? Certainly. But at the end of the day, the metrics reward you for beating good teams. You are rewarded for your performance relative to the quality of your opponent.”
College basketball data analyst Ken Pomeroy noticed another change: More games this season had much higher pregame win odds in their ratings. He says he believes the transfer portal has strengthened elite teams and widened the gap between the top and bottom of Division I.
“The best teams have higher ratings than ever,” Pomeroy told ESPN.
Betting markets reflect that wider gap. In the 2021-22 season, non-power conference teams were an average of 16.3 points underdogs against power conference opponents. This season, that number skyrocketed to 22.9 points.
The point differential in the NCAA Tournament has also increased, going from an average of 6.4 points in 2023 to 8.7 last season, a 10-year high. Higher spreads mean fewer expected surprises and higher margins of victory. This season, games were decided by an average of 15.1 points, a five-year high.
Pomeroy says he hopes the trend of fewer surprises continues, but he's not worried about the tournament losing its magic.
“Basketball at the top is better than ever,” he said. “People are going to miss the Cinderella races, and I don't think they're going to go away completely, but it's single-elimination basketball. It's incredible theater.”
