Coaches Don’t Think Cinderellas Are Dead After All

NEWARK, N.J.— Every program still in the Big Dance hails from a power conference for the first time since the NCAA expanded the tournament to 64 teams four decades ago.

The lack of Cinderella teams in the men’s Sweet 16 this year has been one of the biggest topics of conversation during pregame press conferences at the East Regional in Newark. Coaches, however, pushed back on the narrative that Cinderella teams are going extinct. 

“No, I don’t think the Cinderella idea is done,” BYU’s Kevin Young told reporters Wednesday. Alabama’s Nate Oats and Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd agreed.

But they all acknowledged that rules surrounding NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals and the transfer portal have made it more difficult than ever for lesser-resourced programs to find success in March. That’s because players can transfer as many times as they want without penalty—so when they play well, they can easily be lured by higher-resourced teams. 

“My guess would be, you’re still going to have some upsets,” Oats said. “But I did see somebody make the point, like anybody that gets really good at mid-major level, it seems there’s just a lot more rev share, NIL money up at the higher levels. I don’t know that I would have been able to keep my whole team together at Buffalo in today’s day and age.” Oats was the Bulls’ head coach for four years from 2015-2019.

Lloyd was skeptical that just one year of data established a new trend. “I don’t know if there’s enough sample size yet to say this is NIL-driven, or just how it broke this year,” he told reporters. “I don’t know why there would be so much difference from last year to this year.”

There is hope for non-power conference schools, however.

Oats said all the top bidding for players is happening in the transfer portal—with fewer spots for incoming freshmen than ever before. He said schools with less money could take advantage of the opportunity to dig into the pool of upcoming high school recruits to build tournament-caliber rosters. “Those mid-major schools, they’re going to have to do a really good job of evaluating talent coming out of high school,” he said. “Then you’re just going to have to do it with some younger guys, I think.”

The House v. NCAA settlement, which might be approved on April 7, could also create an entirely new landscape. The settlement would put in place a system of revenue-sharing that allows each D-I school to pay its players a combined  $20.5 million next year. That could give non-FBS schools a major advantage, since they could direct more of that money to their basketball teams rather than football teams. (Big East commissioner Val Ackerman told FOS during the conference tournament she believed it would give her league a leg up.)

“I think things have a way of—they work themselves out,” Young said. “People learn whatever the rules of engagement are. People are going to learn how to play them to their advantage, and I’m sure the mid-majors will figure out how to work around the way things currently are.”