If you picked the current men’s final four of UConn, Miami, San Diego State, and Florida Atlantic, you either picked randomly, were drinking heavily while you were picking, or are lying. Two of these teams were hot choices to lose in the first round. Only one, UConn, has ever been to a Final Four, and is also the highest ranked team left as a four seed. Florida Atlantic had never won a tournament game before and is often confused with FIU a few miles down the coast. If San Diego State played Florida Atlantic in the regular season, the only people who would watch go to those schools. And now it’s for a spot in the title game. This isn’t just an unlikely Final Four. It’s like finding street parking in midtown Manhattan on a weekday for an entire week unlikely.
There are some possible explanations for why it’s these four and not teams with better rankings and stronger pedigree. One is the influence of the transfer portal that lets players move after every season, either for greener pastures or the prospect of more money from name, image, and likeness. Between that and the longstanding push for top stars to go to the NBA after one or maybe two years, blue blood programs are having a really hard time building teams with any continuity. Which means that lesser teams with more experienced players can overcome a talent gap with age and stability. That, and a whole lot of luck, which should never be underestimated in a one-and-done event like this. And we should remember that despite all this year’s chaos, that Kansas beat North Carolina in last year’s title game. So one year does not a trend make.
Regardless, a Final Four like this one will raise a bunch of red flags with people that have vested interest in college basketball as it is – namely those who make a lot of money off it. That includes all the traditional power teams and conferences that expect the revenue that comes from making deep runs in March. This year, only one team comes from a Power 5 football conference – that’s Miami from the ACC. Which means the SEC, Big 10, Pac 12, and Big 12 will get nothing from this point on. As they say in pretty much every mob movie ever, now they’re messing my money. So no matter how delightful that perhaps the sixth most well-known university in Florida might win it all, I’m certain the folks in Gainesville and Tallahassee don’t find it so magical.
I can’t imagine that this current reality will endure. Somehow the Goliath’s of college sports are going to make sure they preserve their bank. How that’s actualized is the multi-billion dollar question. What we do know is that it’s far too late to put the genie of star athletes at big schools making money and transferring at will back in the bottle. So whatever the solution for all the conferences that rule college sports, it’s not going to be going back to the way it was, when a 16 seed beating a one was like getting hit by lightning twice on the same day – when it’s not even raining.
What that could mean, and I feel like I say this about everything now, is the end of the NCAA, at least how we know it. I used to believe that March Madness was the only think keeping Division I college sports together, the only thing that kept the 60 or so big time football schools from just breaking off and doing their own thing. It was such great dramatic spectacle that needed smaller schools to maintain a fantasy while still feeding the insatiable bank accounts of the big guys. But if that system changes and the mythology of the tournament becomes its reality, then it doesn’t seem like such a good reason to keep the family together, at least not for haves of the game. Which means that sooner than we think, the Power Five could split from the pack and take their basketball with them. Even if the NCAA kept a tournament going, it wouldn’t have Kentucky or UCLA or any of the other brand names that make the upsets, upsets in the first place. It would be like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger or Keith Richards. Just not the same.
Which would make the tournament not only less popular, but even harder to pick. That is, assuming it could get any harder than this year.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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