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The first weekend of the 2025 NCAA Tournament is in the books and if it felt a little lackluster to you, you’re not the only one. The Sweet 16 is officially set and for the first time in tournament history, dating back to 1975, it will consistent of only teams from Power 4 conferences.
Representation of conferences in the Sweet 16 is as follows: seven teams from the SEC, four from the Big Ten, four from the Big 12 and one from the ACC. In fact, according to OptaStats, every previous Sweet 16 dating back 49 years had at least seven different conferences represented. Additionally, this marks the first NCAA Tournament without a team seeded 11th or worse in the Sweet 16 since 2007.
The shocking development shows not only the growth of power conferences in terms of sheer size, but also the purchasing power that these teams have. All four No. 1 seeds remain in the tournament. Of the 20 combined starters on those teams, only nine are currently playing for the team that they began their college career with. SEC powerhouses Auburn and Florida has just one starter each that signed with their team out of high school.
Unsurprisingly, college basketball fans have soured on the NCAA Tournament going forward.
“You can thank NIL money and the transfer portal for killing the excitement of the tournament,” one fan tweeted.
“NIL will make it harder and harder to find Cinderella in the coming years. Another reason that tournament expansion is a bad idea,” said another.
Ultimately, there were signs that this was coming throughout the season and beyond. Not only have the top conferences monopolizing talent through the transfer portal, but they’ve dominated in the regular season.
The top 25 teams in NET rating entering the tournament had just one loss to teams in quads three and four. Last season, they had nine. The gap in talent and depth is as wide as its ever been, and it will likely continue to build this way.
This isn’t quite DEFCON 1, but March Madness certainly has a problem and it’s one that isn’t going away anytime soon.