Don’t write off future Cinderellas just because it’s an all-power conference Sweet 16, coaches say

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Nearly every year there’s at least one lovable underdog that rises from obscurity in the NCAA Tournament to capture the hearts of basketball fans and bust their brackets.

Not this year.

All 16 regional semifinalists are from power conferences for the first time since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The popular theory is that the transfer portal has led to a concentration of the best players at the big schools paying the most NIL money and, soon, the most through revenue sharing.

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Is this year just an anomaly? Purdue coach Matt Painter, whose 2023 team became the second No. 1 seed of all-time to lose to a No. 16 (Fairleigh Dickinson), sure hopes not.

“The upsets and how valuable the upsets are to the common fan, it’s created March Madness,” he said Thursday. “Let’s not get away from it. It’s a big piece of March Madness.”

Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd said it’s too early to know if the days of Cinderellas are over, or at least not as common.

“I don’t know if there’s enough sample size yet to say this is NIL-driven or just how it broke this year,” Lloyd said.

There were three straight 15-seeds in the Sweet 16 three straight years recently — Oral Roberts in 2021, Saint Peter’s in 2022 and Princeton in 2023. Those Peacocks of Saint Peter’s made it all the way to the Elite Eight.

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And remember Florida Gulf Coast’s “Dunk City” team in 2013? It was the first No. 15 to win two games in a tournament. How about 2018 Loyola-Chicago, Sister Jean and the 11th-seeded Ramblers’ run to the Final Four?

Those types of storylines are conspicuously missing this year with the SEC sending a record seven teams to the Sweet 16, the Big Ten and Big 12 four apiece and the ACC one.

That doesn’t mean the little guys haven’t provided some highlights. No. 12 seed McNeese State, with its social media star student manager, knocked off Clemson, while No. 11 Drake and its four Division II transfer starters took out Missouri, and No. 15 Robert…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/dont-write-off-future-cinderellas-193855335.html

Author : ERIC OLSON

Publish date : 2025-03-27 19:38:00

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