The NCAA tournament gets better every year. Right?
Sports Illustrated’s headline was “The Unbelievables. The most surprising Final Four of all time is heading to Houston.” ESPN called it the most “Unlikely Final Four Ever.”
It’s not hyperbole.
There was Butler last year and George Mason in 2006, but an eight and 11th seed making the same Final Four?
It’s a first.
As Andy Katz of ESPN pointed out, in the last six years four teams from the Horizon and Colonial League have made it to the Final Four while the Big 12 has sent just one.
More scoreboard? A Horizon league team has played in a championship game over that time span, while the perennial powerhouse Big East has been blanked since 2004. Teams from mid-major conferences are 18-11 in the current tournament.
Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the last at-large bids to make it, is surprising enough, but Butler two years in a row?
On paper, it’s a winning lotto ticket.
But is it really fluky? Are these simply examples of outliers?
The metrics the selection committee uses to select at-large bids and determine seeds are better and sounder than ever.
But the “upset” trend has gotten considerably stronger in the last six years or so.
What, if anything, has changed to create the perceived parity and the rise in competitiveness from mid-major conferences?
Some people claim that the parity trend coincided with the NBA’s one-and-done rule, forcing players who once skipped college to play a year.
Major programs are forced to re-structure their teams year-after-year around freshmen, whereas mid-major teams develop cohesive units with strong senior cores. But Kentucky lost John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Daniel Orton and Eric Bledsoe (all freshmen), yet they’ve returned to the Final Four. Ohio State lost sophomore superstar Evan Turner, and neither team was upset (Ohio State lost to Kentucky if you weren’t paying attention).
The one-and-done rule benefits the bigger programs. The big money conferences are recruiting better than ever because of a larger talent pool, allowing them to re-load with each recruiting class.
The answer is that mid-major basketball programs have gotten smarter in building teams based on ball and player movement. The 3-point line is a great equalizer and it allows “lesser talented” teams the floor spacing to run efficient offensive sets.
These programs are building their teams with a realistic plan to compete with more talented teams.
Reach Nick at nick.ruland@asu.edu
