Is Cinderella Dead?

[spiderland]

Regardless of the AZ-OR outcome, this year’s Sweet 16 makeup will be:

SEC - 7
B1G - 4/5
Big XII - 4/3
ACC - 1

Has the age of NIL and lower division talent upward mobility via the portal doomed Cinderella in March Madness for the foreseeable future, or was this year’s tournament a one-off?

 

[LetsGoHawks83]

Cinderella isn't dead. There will still be lower division teams that make the sweet 16.

But it VERY likely will be less frequent. NIL and especially the ability to transfer and play immediately definitely play into that.

 

[HawkeyeGenius]

Yup, NIL and unlimited transfer has made the tournament quite boring.

 

[Hawkfan_08]

Yup, NIL and unlimited transfer has made the tournament quite boring.

I think we will still see upsets as it's basketball but it will be really hard to win multiple games now.

The ACC is lucky Duke is still there...

 

[TampaHawkfan]

If the first round games start to resemble the first round of the college football playoff, that's definitely going to take a lot of the excitement out of those early rounds for me.

 

[Easthawk1062]

The amount of former mid major players the announcers in the games today kept bringing up as transfers that played in the tournament last year was pretty sad.

 

[ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK]

Regardless of the AZ-OR outcome, this year’s Sweet 16 makeup will be:

SEC - 7
B1G - 4/5
Big XII - 4/3
ACC - 1

Has the age of NIL and lower division talent upward mobility via the portal doomed Cinderella in March Madness for the foreseeable future, or was this year’s tournament a one-off?

Yep.

Everything you just said.

Was texting this exact same thing that you posted to friends.

It’s never coming back either.

The men’s 1st round & 2nd rounds will be as predictable & blowouts as the women’s tournament has always been.

But for different reasons.

So sad. $$$ even found a way to kill America’s greatest sporting event. 🤦🏽‍♂️

So lame.

 

[CookyMonster]

Cinderella is a whore now

 

[SA_Hawk]

I don’t know about Cinderella but Disney certainly killed Snow White.

 

[Arbor1]

No worries, if youre disappointed with your ‘school’ team just wait till next year - you’ll have a brand new one! Again. Rah yeah. Keep those nil dollars flowing baby - you get nil satisfaction for nil $. Opt out to save college athletics, stop enabling this scheme.

 

[BlameIt]

Has the age of NIL and lower division talent upward mobility via the portal doomed Cinderella

STOP calling it NIL.

It has nothing to do with image or likeness.

It's everything to do with PAYing someone to PLAY for your team. It's free agency. That has nothing to do with Tshirt sales or car ads.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

The only answer is limiting players to one transfer somehow. Maybe make these NIL/revenue sharing deals contract binding.

The sport can't survive half the players going into the portal every year and every roster a revolving door.

Good way to kill the sport IMO.

 

[Legs94]

Cinderella is a whore now

 

[StormHawk42]

Literally texted my buddy that last night. Small schools used to develop their rosters over the course of 3-4 years and if they got in, were primed for a run. Just isn’t gonna be the case anymore.

 

[GunnerHawk]

There were several teams that were very close, but the gap seems to be getting larger. It isn't just non-P4 schools. Schools with less money, Iowa for example, have a tougher time retaining or bringing in top talent. The profit sharing piece will create an even bigger chasm.

 

[ToddStrong]

Like others have said, the mid majors used to thrive because they were experienced and had a huge experience advantage over the one and dones. Now you have Kentucky, Michigan, Florida, Michigan State, Duke and Arizona just taking those experienced guys. We'll still get a Saint Mary's, Drake or McNeese State occasionally. But the mid majors of our past have all been added to the list of "should be good". Creighton, Butler,Xavier and Gonzaga aren't true mid majors anymore.

They can now miss in recruiting and still get the diamond in the rough they overlooked a few years down the road. This is how Michigan, Kentucky, Florida and Arizona were able to build themselves up so quickly under new regimes. It's why Indiana will be a contender next year. If you can't make the tournament when you have every advantage handed to you, you really really are terrible. I'm looking at you Ohio State, USC, Florida State, Virginia, Miami, Arizona State and Notre Dame. Heck I'm looking at Iowa, Penn State, Nebraska and Minnesota as well.

Let's just say the entire SEC and B1G conference at this point.

 

[BHoppy]

No reason to expand the tournament, but with $$$ involved they will add more teams. Not as many games were close until the second round.

 

[spiderland]

I don’t know about Cinderella but Disney certainly killed Snow White.

Yeah, saw the trailer for that in the theater a couple months ago. Even my 20 year old son was like WTF?

 

[spiderland]

When your Sweet 16 Cinderella is a 10th seeded Arkansas coached by John Calipari, that says a lot.

I may see if I can find any analysis of this year’s first two rounds (did fewer non-power conference teams even make the field, how did overall number of upsets in first rounds and number of non-power conference teams making round of 32 compare with previous years in the 64 bracket era, etc.) unless anyone has something they’d like to link.

Edit to note that a quick Google search shows a WSJ column on this very topic from yesterday. But it costs money to read, lol.