So long, slipper: Why Cinderella will be harder to find at March Madness this season

Much of the magic March Madness churns out every year comes from pitting small schools with names and players few people have heard of against the Dukes and North Carolinas of the world at a time when everyone seems to be watching.

What makes it even better is that, sometimes, those teams win.

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But the NCAA Tournament’s most darling participant, Cinderella, is finding it harder to survive and advance in the world of expanding conferences, payrolls and transfer portals.

The 2026-27 season ushers in the era of the 76-team tournament — an eight-team expansion to a bracket in which the biggest of the big not only control the contours of the tournament, but, more than ever, can simply elbow Cinderella out of the way using the power of their checkbooks.

“Unfortunately, you may see an upset, but it may be harder for the smaller schools to make those longer runs in the tournament,” said Niko Medved, who was one excruciating buzzer-beater away from taking underdog Colorado State to the Sweet 16 in 2025 before he left to coach Minnesota a few weeks later. “We’ll see what the data shows here in the next 3-4 years, but I could see that scenario.”

Teams that once wore glass slippers, like Gonzaga or Butler, long ago shed the plucky underdog label and have either turned into behemoths or hopped into conferences with them. Others that made a splash, like St. Peter’s or Loyola-Chicago, often see their best players and coaches siphoned away by the big boys.

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The only two No. 16 seeds to beat a No. 1 — UMBC and Fairleigh Dickinson — along with 2022 Elite Eight team St. Peter’s are among the three dozen or so teams that start with a disadvantage because they don’t participate in the revenue-sharing structure that now rules talent acquisition (read: winning) in big-time college sports.

Meanwhile, the unspoken secret about tournament expansion is that it was done to afford more big-conference teams a chance of making the field and earn the millions that come with it….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/long-slipper-why-cinderella-harder-134322186.html

Author : EDDIE PELLS

Publish date : 2026-11-01 13:43:00

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