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Joe Lunardi
multiple authors
Any qualified data analyst will say, “Don’t draw serious conclusions from a 52-game sample.” Yet here we are, three rounds into another NCAA Tournament, drawing sweeping conclusions about the state of college basketball.
Keep in mind, this tournament represents less than 1% of Division I men’s basketball games this season. Yet we debate: What happened to Cinderella?
His demise has not been exaggerated, but the blame has been misplaced. You cannot include Cinderella in the Big Dance if there are fewer invitations to the Big Dance. You cannot make his ride unnecessarily harsh. And you can’t just make it dance with big, ugly people.
The structure of the game has been moving in this direction for longer than we want to admit. It’s been 20 years since George Mason became the first double-digit player to reach the Final Four without the early-round home-court advantage that its only predecessor, LSU, had had in 1986, but the real significance of the 2006 tournament was its opener. That field included four teams from the Missouri Valley Conference and two each from the Mountain West, Atlantic 10, WAC, and Conference USA, with seven at-large bids outside the so-called power conferences with an average seed of 8.1. These days, we have to combine the last two tournament fields to come up with seven at-large bids from non-power conferences, and they only have an average seed of 10.1.
In 2006, the power conference consisted of 72 schools. Now, that number is 79 (and growing) — and none of those programs moved forward with the intention of losing NCAA bids to the likes of mid-majors. Conference realignment has done more to “shrink” the tournament field than any other factor, limiting the number of at-large bids for non-power programs.
Non-power conferences must do a better job of fielding their best teams for the NCAA regionals through both regular season and conference tournament drafting. Tulsa, Dayton, Stephen F. Austin, Liberty and Belmont won a combined 124 games this season and weren’t even close to at-large consideration. And don’t forget that 31-1 Miami (Ohio) was in danger of missing the cut. This would not have happened before the NCAA introduced NET rankings in 2018, whose quartile system weights opponent strength in a way that works to the advantage of power conference teams.
The effects on seeding are arguably more detrimental than the decline in non-vigor selections. Will the eighth-seeded Butler team, which made its second consecutive national championship game in 2011, also earn a major with its 21-9 regular season record? What about Sister Jean and the 11-seed Loyola Chicago Ramblers, who came perilously close to losing their conference tournament opener before reaching the Final Four in 2018?
The primary reason the NCAA Tournament is a proponent of expansion is to combat the dominance of power conferences in selection and seeding. The big boys aren’t giving up market share any time soon, so the most acceptable path to a more balanced segment is to offer something for everyone. The first eight teams eliminated from the tournament typically include three to four non-power members. Expansion is probably the only way to bring them in.
Just as the prince is attracted to Cinderella, the fans first understand the victory. This is why the viewing public is overwhelmingly opposed to power conference teams with mediocre records. And since we can’t answer questions like whether Miami (Ohio) was actually better than Auburn, we can reward teams that perform more for less.
And the results support this view. In the Nets era, 20 power conference teams with sub-.500 league records have received at-large bids. Only eight managed to advance with a .355 winning percentage. Last year alone, six SEC teams with losing conference records made the tournament. Only one moved forward.
On the other side of the coin, there have been 39 mid-major and major teams in the Nets era. With an overall winning percentage of .400, more than half advanced (20). So, as has been reported in this area for years, non-power majors win more NCAA Tournament games and certainly advance more often than “medium majors” with losing conference records.
It’s almost as if winning leads to victory and losing leads to defeat. Imagine.
Want more Cinderella Teams? Set a tournament eligibility level and give the spots we achieve – an average of about three per year – to qualified mid-majors. Whether the field is 64, 68, 76 or 80 teams, make winning the most important thing.
After all, that’s why we keep score in the first place.
