For decades, NCAA’s March Madness ran on chaos. A mid-major program nobody had heard of would knock off a power conference giant, and the bracket would explode. Those moments were not accidents. They were the product of smaller programs that had quietly built something real, team by team, over years of sustained work in competitive conferences. That pipeline is drying up, and the tournament is beginning to show it.
The numbers behind the disappearing upset
Two consecutive NCAA tournaments have come and gone without a single mid-major team advancing to the Sweet 16. Historically, at least two programs from smaller conferences would reach that stage as a matter of course. That baseline has vanished.
The first-round of the NCAA tournament to data tells the same story from a different angle. The average margin of victory in the opening round recently hit 17.4 points, the largest recorded since the tournament expanded in 1985. Upsets have not simply become less frequent. The games themselves have become less competitive.
The decline in the quality of automatic bid winners tracks alongside that trend. In 2016, teams receiving No. 15 seeds averaged a KenPom ranking of 124, with No. 14 seeds averaging 105. By 2025, those figures had dropped to approximately 179 and 142. The programs filling the Cinderella seed lines are measurably weaker than they were a decade ago.
Conference realignment did the real damage
NIL deals and the transfer portal absorb most of the criticism when this conversation comes up, but the more consequential shift began well before either existed. The wave of conference realignment that started around 2010 set off a chain reaction that has been weakening mid-major basketball ever since.
The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC expanded aggressively, pulling top programs out of smaller conferences and leaving those leagues hollowed out. The restructured Big East pulled Xavier and Butler from the Atlantic 10, along with Creighton from the Missouri Valley. The Atlantic 10 responded by absorbing VCU, George Mason, and Davidson from conferences below it. The Missouri Valley, having lost Creighton, then Loyola Chicago and Wichita State to realignment moves, backfilled with Belmont and Murray State, which thinned the Ohio Valley Conference further.
Each move made competitive sense for the program involved. Collectively, they gutted the conferences that used to send legitimate threats into the tournament. The Missouri Valley, CAA, and Horizon League once reliably produced No. 12 and No. 13 seeds capable of winning games. Those NCAA leagues still receive automatic bids. The teams filling those bids are no longer the same caliber.
NIL and the transfer portal accelerated the gap
Once conference realignment had weakened the mid-major talent pool, NIL and the transfer portal finished the job. Power conference programs can now identify standout players on mid-major rosters and offer financial arrangements that smaller schools have no ability to match. The transfer portal makes those moves fast and simple.
Texas allocated nearly $376 million to its athletic department in 2025, a roughly $50 million increase from the year before. A mid-major program competing for a prospect against that financial infrastructure is not fighting an uphill battle. It is fighting a different sport entirely.
Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, who came up through smaller programs, has spoken openly about the financial breaking point that NCAA mid-majors are approaching. The concern is not abstract. It is reflected directly in what the tournament bracket looks like now compared to ten years ago.
What this means for NCAA’s March Madness
Viewership has not collapsed. Nielsen reported that the opening day of Round of 64 action drew an average of 9.8 million viewers, a 6% increase over the prior year and the largest opening-day audience in tournament history. Fans are still watching.
What they are watching has changed. The NCAA tournament remains a spectacle. It has become a less unpredictable one. The financial architecture of college basketball has concentrated talent at the top and left mid-major programs scrambling to stay relevant, let alone threatening. Until something structural changes, the Cinderella bracket run may be more nostalgia than expectation.
