Has It Struck Midnight for Cinderellas in the NCAA Tournament?

Last year Davidson players won over the hearts of basketball fans across the country. They were a few breaks away from beating the eventual national champion Kansas and advancing to the Final Four. 

In 2004, George Mason knocked off No. 1 Connecticut to reach the Final Four. These are the things that draw in the casual sports fans and make them love the NCAA Tournament. Many people are asking, where is the Davidson or George Mason in this tournament?

This year may be a glimpse at the future of the tournament moving forward. Last year was the first time all No. 1 seeds made the Final Four, and this year, for the first time in tournament history, the top three seeds won all their games on the first weekend going 24-0.

Now I am not saying that there won’t be a fourteen seed that upsets a three seed in the future, but I seriously believe that runs like Davidson and George Mason made in the last five years will continually become more rare.

The biggest reason for this change is the rule put in place by the National Basketball Association four years ago: players who would have normally not attended college, have made a big impact on major conference tournament teams. 

The Memphis Tigers have been a power for the past few years but would they have been as good without a Derrick Rose on their team? How about Tyreke Evans this year?  The Tigers still would have made a good basketball team, but they would not have performed at the level they have these past two years.

There's is no way Syracuse wins the National Championship in 2001 without Carmelo Anthony.  

This not only effects the level of play from the major conference powers, but also the teams who may not have had an opportunity to get recruits before the NBA instituted the age limitation.

This year, two teams from the Big 10 conference were on the bubble heading into their conference tournament. Penn State and Northwestern are not traditional basketball powers, but more players are interested in their programs because scholarships that might have been offered to them from Ohio State or Michigan State are now going to players who have to come to college instead of jumping to the NBA.

The tournament has also given in to economic pressures. One of the most important things about the NCAA tournament is the neutral site. When you get to the Final Four, there isn’t much you can do, but the first four rounds, and especially the first two, should be neutral for both teams.

Villanova, whose campus is within the city limits of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, played in Philadelphia for the first two rounds this year. These situations create a home court advantage, because Villanova played three “neutral” site games there earlier this year.

Teams should have to travel at least out of the state to play, otherwise there is no way these sites can be considered neutral. They still may have more fans, but they won’t be playing in their own backyard.

I hope that teams like Davidson and George Mason continue to perform well in the tournament, but with so many more highly-touted players filtering into the major conference system, and neutral sites not being truly neutral, mid-majors and overachieving teams will struggle to fit in the glass slipper.