March Madness: Is NIL the death of Cinderella?

Yahoo

25-03-2025

Oakland men's basketball coach Greg Kampe recalls exactly when he realized that mid-majors had become a farm system for power-conference programs.
It was when Kampe lost a standout player who grew up minutes from campus, who attended dozens of Oakland games as a kid and who always hoped to play for the Golden Grizzlies just like both his mom and dad once did.
Trey Towsend blossomed from unwanted recruit to Horizon League player of the year during his time at Oakland. The 6-foot-6 forward saved his best for the NCAA tournament stage, piling up 47 points and 25 rebounds in two games last March as the 14th-seeded Golden Grizzlies waylaid talent-laden Kentucky and took NC State to overtime.
On the eve of that run, Towsend described playing for Oakland as 'a dream come true.' Two weeks later, he put his name in the transfer portal. The temptation was too strong with no penalty for transferring and with heavyweight programs offering hundreds of thousands in NIL money if he spent his final college season playing for them.
'He's making 20 times what I could give him this season,' Kampe told Yahoo Sports of Townsend, who has started 29 games this season for Arizona — a Sweet 16 team. 'What do you do? You wish him well. Many of these guys are being told you're not going to be in the NBA, so get your money now and you've got a chance to start your life with a little bit of a bankroll. That's a hard thing to argue against. I can't argue against that with my players.'
Stories like that exemplify why there's concern in college basketball circles that the absence of upsets in this year's NCAA tournament may be the start of a trend rather than just an anomaly. The modern landscape of college basketball has made it more challenging than ever for the likes of Oakland to compete against deep-pocketed power-conference programs.
Three players who Kampe recruited and developed played for Arizona, Washington and Ohio State this season — and the 41-year Oakland coach is far from alone. Lesser-known college programs from traditional one-bid leagues served as springboards for many of the stars of this week's Sweet 16.
Auburn forward Johni Broome, the co-favorite to be named college basketball's national player of the year, began his college career at Morehead State. Fellow all-SEC standouts Mark Sears (Alabama), Chaz Lanier (Tennessee) and Walter Clayton Jr. (Florida) started out at Ohio, North Florida and Iona, respectively. Three pillars of Florida Atlantic's 2023 Final Four team now start for Arkansas, Florida and Michigan. Three former Belmont Bruins are now key players at Maryland, Ole Miss and Florida.
Those player retention issues have eaten away at the biggest advantage that small-conference programs used to have in March. The Loyola Chicagos, Wichita States and Butlers of the past overcame the talent gap with older players who developed superior cohesiveness through years of playing together. That would be harder to pull off today with wealthier programs poaching players by sliding into their DMs or making offers through back channels.
While the transfer portal does work both ways, mid-major coaches say that it's tougher now than it was five years ago to find power-conference players seeking to drop down a level in search of more playing time. The NIL money available to a SEC or Big Ten benchwarmer often surpasses the market for a SoCon or Horizon League starter. As Kampe puts it, 'The money has changed the dynamic completely. They're not going to come down as often anymore.'
The supposed concentration of talent at the power-conference level did not draw much national attention the first few years of the NIL era because it didn't detract from the magic of March. The NCAA tournament retained its egalitarian appeal. Underdogs still turned into giant slayers. No-names still became legends.
It was only three years ago that 15th-seeded St. Peters shocked Kentucky and Purdue on its way to the Elite Eight. It was only two years ago that Fairleigh Dickinson became the second No. 16 seed to win an NCAA tournament game, that 15th-seeded Princeton advanced to the Sweet 16 and that Florida Atlantic came within a Lamont Butler buzzer beater of playing UConn for the national title.
While no one emerged from small-conference obscurity to make last year's Sweet 16, five double-digit-seeded mid-majors pulled first-round upsets. Oakland ambushed Kentucky. Yale toppled Auburn. James Madison waylaid Wisconsin. Grand Canyon took down Saint Mary's. And Duquesne edged BYU.
Then came the discourse-shifting opening weekend of this year's NCAA tournament. For the first time since the NCAA tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975, every team that advanced to the round of 16 hails from a power conference.
Seven are from the SEC, a Sweet 16 record. Four are from the Big Ten. Four are from the Big 12. One is from the ACC. The rest of college basketball's 31 conferences were shut out. Even the vaunted Big East failed to advance a team beyond the round of 32.
There was one plucky, double-digit seed that managed to crash the party. Yes, the Cinderella of this NCAA tournament is an Arkansas team coached by John Calipari and assembled thanks to one of the sports largest NIL war chests.
The lack of small-conference charm in this year's Sweet 16 has inspired widespread national attention and debate.
On Monday's episode of 'Get Up,' former Duke star and current ESPN analyst Jay Williams argued that 'NIL is the death of mid-major Cinderella runs.' He clarified that they'll still happen, but 'it's gonna be more of a rarity.'
That was measured and reasonable compared to Stephen A. Smith's scorching hot take.
'If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball,' the ESPN provocateur warned on 'First Take.'
To take such a strong stance based on a single NCAA tournament seems a little premature. It's like arguing that only schools that start with the letter 'N' are viable title contenders in the future if Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina all made the Final Four one year.
Those comments also ignore the many ways that the loosening of NIL rules is benefiting college basketball. Fringe NBA prospects are staying in college longer rather than chasing money in the G-league or overseas. Some of this season's most recognizable veteran stars would have been long gone in previous eras.
And yet there is real concern in college basketball circles about the widening of the chasm between the sport's haves and have-nots. Michigan coach Dusty May recently told The Field of 68's John Fanta that he doesn't think Cinderella is dead but that the sport's changing landscape has 'taken all the best players from the lower leagues and spread them throughout the power-five level.'
'Now 1 through 18 in our league, 1 through 16 in [other leagues], everyone at the bottom is much better than the bottom used to be,' May said.
When asked if it's harder now than it was five years ago for a mid-major to make a deep NCAA tournament run, Kampe told Yahoo Sports, 'That's a simple answer. Yes. Yes, it is.' But when asked if he worried about the future of the NCAA tournament, Kampe took a more cautious, wait-and-see stance.
'I don't think enough time has gone by to definitively say this is going to change the tournament forever,' he said.
To Kampe, there's no use whining and complaining about how college basketball is changing. You do that, the 69-year-old Oakland coach says, and 'you're going to fall to the wayside. Nobody's ever going to hear from you again.'
'It's our job to figure out how to win this way, how to get to the NCAA tournament and win in the tournament,' Kampe added.
What does that look like? Maybe two of this year's top mid-majors provided a blueprint. Drake and UC San Diego built experienced rosters by mining the D-II ranks. Ben McCollum brought four key players with him from North Missouri State to Drake. UCSD's Eric Olen found talent anywhere from Hawaii-Hilo, to Southern Nazarene University, to Azusa Pacific.
Kampe has gone the Division II route in the past. This past season, he recruited a transfer from a Canadian program with modest success.
'We're going to keep turning over every stone,' Kampe said. 'This NCAA tournament has been a wakeup call, a slap in the face. OK, what do we do? How do we win this way? We're going to find a counter, maybe not Greg Kampe but someone smarter than Greg Kampe at this level will figure it out.'