Cinderella Teams & the Ides of March Madness

We are seeing what happens when David has his sling taken away before facing Goliath

During a recent appearance on the podcast Pardon My Take, St. John’s men’s basketball head coach Rick Pitino made some interesting comments on the state of college basketball. When asked about the everchanging realities of NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals and the transfer portal in today’s game, Pitino admitted that this recruiting cycle he was not looking at high school recruits and instead targeting players from other schools.

Looking at the teams that made the Sweet 16 in this year’s tournament, Pitino is not alone in his preference for utilizing the transfer portal over bringing in high school recruits. An overwhelming majority of the players on these teams who are getting playing time have been either juniors or seniors that have been acquired through the portal.

What has resulted this year is that we don’t have an underdog story to root for. No mid-majors made the Sweet 16, and no team seeded higher than 12 made it out of the first round. The combination of NIL collectives and the transfer portal seem to have killed the Cinderella story in college basketball, but is that a bad thing?

The Dynamics of a Cinderella Team

In the 1980s, upsets by lower-seeded mid-major schools did not happen very frequently. That started to change when the tournament field expanded in 1985. The ability to make the tournament to play on the biggest stage allowed better players to start going to smaller schools if they were overlooked by so-called blue blood programs.

As a result, we saw numerous 13 and 14 seeded teams upset more well-known programs. It wasn’t until 2018 when UMBC beat Virginia that a 16 seed would triumph over a 1 seed. 1991 was the year when a 15 seed beat a two-seed when Richmond stunned Syracuse. Throughout the 90s and 2000s, basketballs popularity surged, and talent was rapidly improving. Because there are only so many roster spots, players started to consider smaller schools that could offer them immediate playing time.

The players that these schools recruited were often either project players that needed to be developed or undersized players that were overlooked. These schools have produced NBA players such as Steph Curry, CJ McCollum, and Ja Morant. Where many of these teams thrived is through continuity. Quite often, players on Cinderella teams played with each other for years and developed chemistry that proved to be lethal against top-seeded teams that were often filled with freshmen trying to get to the NBA.

A good example of this is the 2022 St. Peter’s Peacocks. They were a 15-seed that upset 2-seeded Kentucky. That Kentucky team featured four players that would go on to play in the NBA, but they were outdone by a St. Peter’s team that shot 52% from three with a roster filled with juniors and seniors that had played with each other for multiple years.

Often, that was the secret sauce of a Cinderella team. Develop players as a unit, hit a few shots, and anything could happen. We saw this frequently when Harvard and Yale upset teams in the last decade. They played a deliberate style and avoided making mistakes. This understanding and efficiency helped them overcome the gap in talent that schools like Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, and others possessed.

The Sea Change of NIL & Transfer Portal

The entire landscape of college athletics changed in 2021 when the combination of NIL and transfer portal mechanics became a part of the equation. With them, the entire concept of amateurism was dead, especially in basketball and football. The image of the student-athlete, which the NCAA has used as its shield for years, was effectively neutralized.

Larger schools started to form massive NIL collectives and leveraged their contacts to lure players to transfer by offering them huge payouts. Financially speaking, this has been a massive win for the players, as they have finally been compensated for the millions of dollars in revenue that they have generated for schools after years of being unpaid.

What the money from NIL has effectively done is give players a reason to stay in college longer. Before, the risk of entering the NBA Draft was worth it because it could lead to a payday worth millions of dollars. But now, if there is any doubt about where a player will be drafted, they can simply transfer and find a new NIL deal. This has made the rosters in college basketball much older than they have been in recent years.

In the Sweet 16 of this year’s men’s tournament, there were 100 players that averaged at least 18 minutes per game. 71 of those players were juniors and seniors, while only 13 were freshmen. Six of the teams do not play a freshman in their rotation, while five teams have one freshman getting consistent minutes. The only team that is freshmen-reliant has been Duke, with three freshmen getting consistent playing time for the Blue Devils.

Coaches have now prioritized the transfer portal to fill their rosters. While some of these players will come from top tier programs and join another elite program (such as Caleb Love transferring from North Carolina to Arizona), many will come from mid-major schools to boost their chances of being noticed by pro scouts.

An example of this is Walter Clayton Jr, who has helped to lead Florida to the Final Four. Clayton Jr started his career at Iona, where he played for two seasons before transferring to Florida. In his case, it was to maximize his opportunities after head coach Rick Pitino left to take over at St. John’s. But the pipeline to the NBA was also likely a factor in his decision to leave as well.

The transfer portal has never been filled with more talent, with over 700 players intending to transfer to a new school next season. Many of them are currently playing for mid-major schools, with the hopes of finding a lucrative NIL deal or the hopes of playing pro ball after their eligibility expires. In that sense it is a mercenary style of roster construction, which has dismantled the idea of a Cinderella team.

The Price of the Highest Level

During his Pardon My Take appearance, Pitino compared the current college basketball landscape to the Euroleague where he coached at Panathinaikos from 2018-2020. According to Pitino, contracts in Europe are incredibly short, often lasting less than two years. This experience prepared him for the volatile world of the transfer portal, where rosters turn over every year.

It is best to look at the highest level of college basketball with the context of professionalism. At this point, players are paid and free to move on to whatever they deem the best situation for them. This could be motivated by financial, pro visibility, or playing time incentives. Smaller schools will simply not have the resources to keep players for a year or two before they search for better opportunities.

The reality of this takes away the continuity and chemistry of smaller programs, which was their primary advantage in years past. Simply put, it has become nearly impossible for a mid-major to remain competitive in today’s game. In this year's tournament, teams seeded 12-16 did exceptionally poorly. They had a record of 2-18 with a –385 point differential. The average margin of defeat was 21.9 points, with 10 games decided by 20 points or more and 15 games decided by 10 points or more.

This new reality has posed a dilemma that has caused a bit of debate among those that love March Madness. On one hand, the lack of huge upsets to top-ranked teams ensures that the teams with the most talent can compete for a title. This can be considered a net positive because it means that higher level basketball is being played.

On the other hand, the “madness” in March Madness is usually associated with the upsets that happen and the unpredictable nature of the tournament. The lack of this dynamic this year has caused many observers to call the tournament boring since it lacks the intrigue of a David venturing into a sea of Goliaths.

Is a tournament more fun when a team like George Mason or St. Peter’s goes on a deep run? I would say that it is from the perspective of the unknown. Many of the characters that have emerged in March have been players and teams that we get to know in real time over the course of a couple of weeks. It is, in every sense of the word, a flirtation.

And yet, from a basketball purist perspective, it is not the best basketball played because the skill level is simply not the same as the schools with higher caliber athletes. The magic of March, it can then be concluded, is truly about the thrill of mystery and the unknown. A realization that we do not seek the best quality of basketball, but rather the most unpredictable.

College basketball is not truly college basketball as we may have known it in the 80s and 90s. It is instead a segment of professional leagues, cut from the same cloth as the NBA and FIBA. This is not a bad thing, as the players are getting more efficient and skilled with every passing year. But as with most good things, they come at a cost. And the cost, if the results of this year’s tournament indicate a trend towards the future, is the endangered existence of Cinderella in March.