If you are like me, you spent much of the this past weekend, Thursday through Sunday night, watching the opening rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. It was great. Saw a lot of good games and some great players, and I look forward to the Regionals that will be contested this coming weekend.
Since the weekend, I have heard a number of people bemoaning the fact that college basketball as it exists today has "killed Cinderella" due in large part to NIL money and the transfer portal. They point to the fact that all of the sixteen teams remaining in the tournament are "big programs" from power conferences, and that the fact that mid-majors just "can't compete anymore". To that I say....it has always been thus. Oh, sure, first round upsets are always fun, but when the smoke clears after the second round, there are usually nothing but blue-bloods left standing. Once in a while a George Mason or VCU manages to advance, but those occasions are few and far between. Rather than me go on and on about it, let me cut-n-paste from the today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column from sports writer Paul Zeise:
• People complaining about the lack of a “Cinderella” advancing in the NCAA tournament are people who have a romanticized view of the event that isn’t based in reality. The truth is one or two of those mid-major teams pulling an upset is fine. A run like George Mason had to the Final Four once in a while is fine. But the tournament is best when the best teams and best players continue to be showcased as the tournament goes on.
The power conferences should field the best teams, as this is the tournament to decide the national champion. I enjoyed watching the High Point win against Wisconsin as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to see five or six High Points winning, and I certainly don’t want to see more than one of them in the Sweet 16.
I know that there are many theories as to why the mid-majors have been shut out of the Sweet 16 the past two seasons. The transfer portal and NIL are a big part of it — the mid-major schools have essentially become feeder programs for the power teams. But there are other factors as well. And it is OK that the power conference teams are taking control of the tournament. As I have written many times, the landscape of college athletics is changing and will continue to change, so you might as well embrace it.
Nailed it!
As for what lies ahead, I will give you a prediction: Houston over Arizona in the Championship game. Had not seen Houston play all year, but when I finally saw them this weekend...Wow. They was one strong team.
And speaking of strong teams, I watched the women's tournament game between Connecticut and Syracuse on Monday night, which UConn won by a score of 98-45. It was 65-12 at halftime, and Syracuse scored only 4 points in the second quarter. Watching the Lady Huskies on Monday night was positively jaw-dropping. Maybe Syracuse just had an off night, a very, very bad off night, at the worst time possible.
Or maybe Connecticut is just THAT good. I don't see how any team can beat them.
By the way, that win over the Orange was their 52nd win in a row.
Finally, one of the highlights of the weekend for me was watching Iowa's Alvaro Folgueiras make the shot at the end of the game that gave the Hawkeyes a 73-72 win over defending champion Florida. Folgueiras was the Player of the Year last year in the Horizon League when he played for Robert Morris and led the Colonials into the NCAA Tournament. He transferred to Iowa after the season (see Paul Zeise's comment above about mid-majors becoming "feeder programs"), and now he has contributed to a Big Ten team making it to the Sweet 16.
Always nice to see a Colonial, even a former one, make good!
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