NCAA Tournament Lacking for Cinderella Stories Might Still Give Us a Fairytale Ending

Help us, Colorado State. You're our only hope.

At any rate, that's how the college basketball fans who will always pull for any March Madness Cinderella story are feeling right about now.

The 2025 men's NCAA tournament only saw three teams seeded No. 11 or worse make it into the second round of the dance, and two of them bit the dust within the first few games on Saturday. No. 11 Drake lost 77-64 to No. 3 Texas Tech, that one coming a couple hours after No. 12 McNeese fell 76-62 to No. 4 Purdue.

That leaves No. 12 Colorado State (facing No. 4 Maryland at 7:10 p.m. ET on Sunday) as the last bastion of hope for a Cinderella story that survives the first weekend.

Should the Rams topple the Crab Five, it absolutely would be a fun bandwagon ride for us all.

Colorado State star Nique Clifford is low key one of the best players in the entire country, up to No. 6 in the KenPom National POY rankings. He's averaging 21.4 points, 8.9 rebounds and 5.2 assists during their 11-game winning streak, and he's merely one of three prolific three-point shooters on this roster, teaming with Kyan Evans and Jalen Lake for 200 made triples on the year.

A Mountain West team making the Sweet 16 wouldn't come anywhere close to matching the magical, completely unpredictable runs by Florida Gulf Coast, Oral Roberts or Saint Peter's of yesteryear's No. 15 seed fame. But the way the Rams have been playing as of late, they could be a legitimate threat to become the first double-digit seed to ever play in a national championship game.

Or, you know, they might lose by double digits to a superior Maryland foe—as has been the fate for just about every would-be Cinderella these past few days. We shall see.

Now, we do at least have one double-digit seed into the Sweet 16. But, please, for the love of all that is holy, don't ever call No. 10 Arkansas a Cinderella story.

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The Razorbacks won a national championship in 1994. John Calipari won one in 2012. Between program and coach, they've been to 12 Final Fours. Just...don't do it.

After Saturday's 79-72 upset of No. 2 St. John's, however, we can absolutely talk about the Hogs as a wildly entertaining sleeper, just as we did last year with NC State and DJ Burns' journey to the Final Four.

Arkansas was supposed to be a whole lot better than a No. 10 seed this season, opening the year at No. 16 in the AP poll before sputtering to an 8-10 record in SEC play. The Hogs have been a different animal as of late, though, and it hardly felt like an upset for them to take down the 30-win Red Storm.

And though it has been rough sledding for the underdogs, the better seed winning more than 80 percent of the games thus far, there are quite a few other sleeper candidates still out there who could join the Razorbacks on Sunday.

No. 9 Baylor knocking off No. 1 Duke in Raleigh would be a monumental upset. No. 10 New Mexico could stun No. 2 Michigan State, or No. 7 Saint Mary's might take down No. 2 Alabama. The twice reigning national champions can't ever really be considered a sleeper, but maybe No. 8 Connecticut can topple red-hot No. 1 Florida to carry that three-peat dream into the second weekend.

And, of course, we can and will still hang our hopes and dreams on the horns of the Colorado State Rams.

If Sunday is more or less a repeat of Saturday, though, with favorites reigning supreme left and right, I suppose we'd just have to settle for what would be a second consecutive year with a Sweet 16 field made up almost entirely of teams who ranked top 22 on the overall seed list.

Oh darn. Excellent basketball games the rest of the way. What a pity.

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Let's be real, though: This is what we were expecting all season long.

The bubble felt uglier than ever before, but that was largely a product of the top teams being stronger than we're accustomed to seeing.

If ever there was a year for literally no first-round upsets in the NCAA tournament, this was the one.

Case in point: I had noted in early February that BYU had the exact same adjusted offensive efficiency and the exact same adjusted defensive efficiency that it finished with last year, yet the Cougars were ranked 13 spots lower on KenPom (31st) than where they finished last year (18th).

Translation: a No. 5 seed caliber team last year would've been lucky to get a No. 8 seed this year.

Moreover, with the exception of the UConn team that blazed through the 2024 NCAA tournament, all four of this year's No. 1 seeds would've been expected to wipe the floor with last year's No. 1 seeds.

There have been a lot of think pieces attributing that to NIL and the transfer portal. We also can't forget the fact that this is the final campaign with the free year of eligibility for the COVID season, fifth-year seniors practically littering the rosters of most of the top teams.

Whatever the reason, the best teams are better; the gap between the haves and the have-nots clearer.

While that has produced a less dramatic—prior to those wild BYU-Wisconsin and Houston-Gonzaga endings Saturday night—less upset-heavy opening weekend than March Madness typically delivers, the trade off just might be a Sweet 16 for the ages.

One where most of us would still have a mostly intact bracket to carry around in our pocket for another few days, no less.