We have survived madness. With the Final Four to us, fans can expect to see a high level basketball between the best teams throughout the season.
This year’s male NCAA Four Four of NCAA is only the second time in history, all the heads n ° 1 have been underway and the first since 2008.
In male and female tournaments, the University of Connecticut is the only non-no. 1 seed to make the Final Four – in the women’s tournament, beating the n ° 1 of the University of Southern California. The USC lost the player of the year of women’s college in 2025 Juju Watkins for the season earlier in the tournament.
We should all want to look at the best teams in competition for a national championship, but the upheavals and scenarios are what makes March Madness special.
With the state of college athletics as is, the transfer portal and the name, the image and the resemblance have completely changed the landscape of university basketball. However, the director of UTA athletics, Jon Fagg, said that he thought that this year’s domination of One Seeds is a stroke of luck.
“Many people say it’s because Nile has done the best teams, the best and everyone else,” he said. “There is a little merit of this, but I have the impression that it will still be a stroke of luck.”
Although there cannot be a direct correlation, the television notes have skyrocketed for the first two laps of the male tournament despite the lack of Cindinellas. The first laps have seen the highest average public since 1993, according to Nielsen Ratings. However, the notes suffered a sure blow of 10% in the Elite Eight compared to that of last year.
The NCAA faces bigger questions. One of them is: at the age of the transfer portal, where is the balance between the schools of the Power Five conference and the Division I Division I programs?
The portal allowed players as the attacker of the University of Auburn, Chad Baker-Mazara, to play longer than the standard four years in college. The 25 -year -old is one of the many athletes who have started their career in lower level programs and have finally played in larger schools, using all their red shirt seasons and the eligibility for the presentation of their capacities.
Many college coaches have expressed their dissatisfaction with the transfer portal, especially when it opens basketball. Geno Auriemma, women’s basketball coach at the University of Connecticut, called the “A Grand Nuage” portal that drags on the NCAA tournament during a press conference on March 28.
“For example, do you think that the NBA will never have an open free agency during the NBA qualifiers? I doubt that,” said Auriemma.
The answer is no, but Fagg added an interesting perspective.
“Ideally, it seems that (the portal) would open after the end of the whole season. But, the reason why this does not do so is because the seasons of most people are finished when March Madness begins,” he said.
Although college coaches lose a grip of the power they used to hold, the NCAA allows athlete students not to have to wait potentially three other additional weeks to announce a decision concerning their future.
In addition to the portal, Nil played a role in increasing athlete students choosing to extend their university career, rather than becoming a pro.
For example, Monday, Olivia Miles, University of Notre Dame Guard, chose to give up the draft of the WNBA and to enter the transfer portal as a transfer of graduates. The decision caused some confusion as to the reason why the choice planned n ° 2 in the next project has chosen to stay at university.
Regardless of the reasoning behind decisions like this, it is undeniable to deny the great difference between what was once the reality for athlete students. If a player was eligible for entering the draft – and was good enough – there was no doubt that this player would have declared for the draft.
Now, especially in women’s basketball, athletes earn more Nile and University brand money than they would probably do it throughout their career in WNBA.
“Now they have enough incitement to continue going to school, making money and perhaps the more will flourish as professional players,” said Fagg.
The NCAA that we know in the past is a distant memory. If the NCAA wants to continue to function as a professional organization, players’ empowerment is something it will have to tolerate.
As for fans of us, we simply have to appreciate the product displayed on our televisions.
@BabyBoimatt