In 2010, the Butler Bulldogs gave Duke the fight of its life in the national championship game, only to lose after Gordon Heyward’s field goal was deflected as time expired.
In 2013 and 2014, the Wichita State Shockers looked like the new powerhouse of men’s basketball, following a Final Four appearance by earning the tournament’s No. 1 seed.
Then as recently as 2023, the Florida Atlantic Owls made a miracle run to the Final Four in only the school’s second championship appearance.
What Butler, Wichita State, Florida Atlantic and many other similar schools have in common are mid-major conferences. That is, schools that are not part of the NCAA’s Power Four of the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC and the Big 12.
More Sports from NBC News
For most of this century, one of the most exciting things about watching the men’s tournament is seeing a small school, which no one seems to be able to find on a map, deep into March. The “Madness” moniker, no doubt, was inspired by teams like Florida Gulf Coast, remembered as “Dunk City,” which was the No. 1 seed. 15 to reach the Sweet 16 in 2013.
But for the second year in a row, zero schools from a central conference made the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Cinderella’s foot may not have fit on the glass slip.
“Look, where I come from, I come from a program that was in the middle, that made itself a great program,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd told reporters after his team beat Utah State in this year’s championship.
Lloyd, who was a former Gonzaga assistant, continued: “I think equality is good in this game, but things are changing. I think that if finance becomes a part of it, there will be a mistake in some of the smaller programs that just don’t have money.”
Indeed, many point to the NIL era as the reason for the potential demise of the mid-major. Money has become a talking point in this competition even in the better off schools.
For example, when asked what needed to change in his system after the UCLA Bruins failed to make the Sweet 16, head coach Mick Cronin said, “I would like about 5 million more. [dollars]. Here is my answer.”
Whatever the reasons, the lack of majors in consecutive years is an outlier in the men’s game, at least this century.
From the 2000 to 2024 tournament, at least two schools outside of the Power Four made the Sweet 16. (Although it should be noted that the distribution of talent was much more spread out than in the current major conference era. Did you know that the Big Ten used to have only 10 schools?)
For most of this millennium, schools from the West Coast Conference, the Atlantic 10, and even the Missouri Valley and Mountain West have routinely reached the Sweet 16.
This year, the lowest-ranked school among the last 16 teams is No. 11 Texas Longhorns, who are by no means David among Goliaths.
The Longhorns left the SEC’s Big 12 in 2024 as part of the modern college realignment craze. And in 2025, Texas spent about $376 million on its athletic department, which is an increase of $50 million from the previous year.
Although the competition seems to be lacking something I don’t say anything due to the lack of angst, at least for now, it doesn’t seem to end up harming or alienating viewers.
According to Nielsen, the first full day of the Round of 64 averaged 9.8 million viewers, which is a 6% increase from last year and the largest audience ever recorded for the actual opening day of the tournament.
Time will tell if the mid-major is truly over or if the past two years have been a fluke in a college landscape that continues to change dramatically. For now, at least, it doesn’t seem to make people stop watching.
