Cinderella. C-ya.

Not your year in the men's bracket

Thanks for reading The Dope.

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It was a little odd to see the SEC peacocking over advancing seven teams in the NCAA men’s Sweet Sixteen, especially considering that the conference began this tournament with 14 squads entered, from its total membership of 16 schools. Fourteen teams from one conference is certainly a record. Then again, the SEC just added two schools last year, and both Oklahoma and Texas made the men’s tourney this year.* It’s always good to get fatter — that’s the super-conference ethos here in 2025.

(*Texas was a First Four entry, which we don’t count but the SEC did so that they could brag more.)

But there’s no doubt that the SEC was a powerhouse in college hoops this season. Collectively, its teams won nearly 90% of the games they played against teams from any other conference. If you’re a Chalky McChalkerson type when it comes to filling your tournament bracket, then you find yourself today awash in SEC high seeds, along with a 10-seed in Arkansas and — well, that’s about it for lower seeds, actually. No. 6 Ole Miss took out a 3-seed in Iowa State, but I’m not sure that qualifies as much of an upset.

And that’s the thing: We are now fully in an age in which upsets are becoming fewer and farther between. The concentration of talent and money among the Power 5 conferences has resulted in about what you’d expect. Those conferences are loaded with good teams, and they mostly win, and everybody else pounds sand.

In March, we don’t love the pound-sand thing so much. We love a real upset and an inspiring, unforeseen run. But for a variety of reasons, that isn’t going to happen much anymore. Enjoy watching heavyweights land roundhouses.

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There are a couple of things at work here. First, and this feels important, the Power 5 no longer actually refers to five conferences. It’s just a term of convenience, like the Big Ten (it hosts 18 schools, currently) and the Big 12 (they’ve got 16). When we say Power 5, we mean those two conferences, plus the SEC and the ACC.

That contraction is not a reduction in schools, but rather in the number of league containers in which to place them. To those remaining conferences flow the vast majority of broadcast revenue, ticket sales, merch peddling and — let’s all say hello to the elephant in the living room — virtually all of the NIL money that has been minted.

If you don’t pay that much attention to college sports until this time of year, NIL is an acronym for a player’s name, image and likeness, for which said player can now be paid openly and seemingly without limit, subject to the person’s social media reach, ability to land endorsement deals, booster payoffs compensation for athletic performance, and so on. It’s basically the wild west, but with money instead of guns. (Usually.)

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So the monster conferences get the money, and with the money they get the players. Guys who in years past might have ridden to the finish of their college careers with, say, a really cool mid-major program are now incredibly likely to bounce out of there in time to draw some checks for a year or two with a big program with fat stacks of cash. It’s bidness.

And so — well, you’ve seen the games.

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The first weekend wasn’t totally devoid of a surprise, but let’s step back for a minute. After rounds one and two, all four No. 1 regional seeds are standing, plus three of the four No. 2 seeds. The only two-seed to go down, St. John’s, lost to a 10-seed in Arkansas — but let’s be real, that was a John Calipari-coached team beating a Rick Pitino-coached team. It was an SEC flex, but both programs are fully funded.

There were two 12-5 upsets: McNeese State over Clemson, and Colorado State over Memphis. That’s great. Those 12-5 matchups only result in upsets about 35% of the time. And No. 11 Drake knocked off No. 6 Missouri, but that 11-6 pairing annually produces the highest number of upsets, suggesting that the seeding system is — as you may have gathered by now — well intended but imprecise.

Otherwise, lots of chalk. (Of the 32 games played, 20 of them were won by double figures.) Lots of powerhouses. No Princeton or Fairleigh Dickinson. No Florida Gulf Coast or Maryland-Baltimore County. You may get a single game upset, but increasingly, you’re not going to get the kind of stunning run that makes college hoops fans go crazy in the best way possible.

When we spoke last week about there being no need to expand the NCAAs, this is what we meant. There’s nothing particularly controversial about the tournament’s top seeds being dominant, and the coming week should produce some really good games: Duke-Arizona, Auburn-Michigan, Kentucky-Tennessee. It’s not against the law to be big and great.

But man, didn’t I just name the teams we always talk about? I’m sure I did.