Before we get into the specifics of what happened in this year's NCAA Tournament, I want to name the trend that has been building for several years and is now impossible to ignore.
The blue bloods are back. The programs with the NIL resources, the elite coaching, and the generational recruiting pipelines are, at the end of the day, the ones left standing when the tournament gets to the final weekend. There are exceptions — there are always exceptions, and we will talk about them — but the pattern is becoming the rule. Money and infrastructure win basketball tournaments more consistently than March magic alone.
Let's look at the Final Four: Michigan, UConn, Arizona, and Illinois. Four programs with a combined 11 national championships. Four programs that collectively spent significantly on NIL and roster management. Four programs with experienced coaching staffs and deep institutional resources. The two programs that most people had penciled into this Final Four — Duke and Florida — both had the highest NIL budgets in their respective regions. They just ran into the wrong opponents on the wrong days.
This is not a coincidence. It is a trend. And it is worth understanding before we talk about what actually happened.
The Numbers Behind the Pattern
Since the NIL era began in 2021, here is what the data shows about the NCAA Tournament: programs ranked in the top 25 for NIL spending have reached the Final Four at a rate roughly three times higher than programs outside that group. The field is 68 teams. The Final Four is four teams. The math is not subtle.
The one seed has reached the Final Four in over 60 percent of tournaments since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Two seeds reach the Elite Eight at a similar rate. High seeds win because good programs recruit better players, coach them better, and prepare them better. NIL has amplified that gap.
The average Final Four program this year spends more on NIL than the average first-round exit by a factor of roughly four to one. That number will grow. The ceiling for mid-major programs to pull off sustained tournament runs is getting lower, not higher, as the transfer portal and NIL reshape rosters year after year.
The five-star recruiting pipeline still runs through the same fifteen programs it has always run through. Of the 25 highest-ranked recruits in the 2025 class, 24 played for programs that received at least one seed in this tournament. That is not magic. That is recruiting done well.
This does not mean the tournament is broken. It means the tournament is reflecting reality. The best programs, with the most resources and the most talented players, are the most likely to win. The drama is in watching how they get there.
The First Round: Beautiful Chaos Within the Pattern
Even in a tournament increasingly dominated by the haves, the first round delivered.
Duke trailed Siena — a sixteen seed — by thirteen points in the second half. Siena became the first sixteen seed in tournament history to hold a double-digit lead over a one seed at halftime. The Blue Devils escaped 71-65. For twenty minutes, the third one-versus-sixteen upset in tournament history was happening. And then the talent differential that Duke's resources made possible reasserted itself.
VCU erased a nineteen-point deficit to beat North Carolina in overtime. The Tar Heels, a program with enormous NIL backing, still lost because VCU is also a well-run program and basketball is played by human beings who have hot nights. Terrence Hill Jr. had 34 points and five assists. The Rams won a game they had no business winning. This is March.
Iowa knocked off defending national champion Florida on a corner three with less than five seconds remaining. Florida is one of the highest NIL spenders in college basketball. Iowa is not. But Florida's guards were streaky all season and Iowa's Alvaro Folgueiras was in the right corner at the right moment. The defending champion went home. These things happen.
High Point — a program that had never won an NCAA Tournament game — defeated Wisconsin on a go-ahead layup from a player who had not made a two-point field goal all season. This is the part of the tournament that cannot be manufactured by money. It is found at the intersection of preparation, confidence, and circumstance.
Nebraska reached the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in program history on a layup with two seconds remaining. A program that had historically not won tournament games now has a Sweet Sixteen appearance.
The Pattern Reasserting Itself
Here is where the tournament showed its true shape.
Houston — one of the most experienced programs in the field under Kelvin Sampson, the program that reached the championship game the previous year — lost to Illinois in the Sweet Sixteen. Two well-resourced programs, one had a better week. Illinois, with the best offense in the country and a roster built through elite international recruiting and the transfer portal, controlled both ends of the floor and sent the Cougars home.
Michigan demolished Tennessee in the Elite Eight's final ten minutes. The Wolverines' frontcourt — three players at 6-foot-9 or taller plus a 7-foot-3 center — is what happens when you recruit nationally and spend on NIL to keep your roster intact through the portal era. Tennessee is also a well-resourced program and still got outplayed physically in the most important stretch of the game.
UConn's comeback from nineteen down against Duke is the exception that the rule-makers point to. But look at both programs: UConn and Duke are perennial top-10 NIL spenders. The upset was not a mid-major beating a blue blood. It was one blue blood beating another on an extraordinary night, capped by Braylon Mullins' thirty-five-foot buzzer-beater.
Arizona beat Purdue with eight different scorers. Illinois beat Iowa with the best offense in the country. These are not accidents. These are programs built to perform over time.
The Final Four
Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Saturday, April 4th.
UConn versus Illinois. Arizona versus Michigan. Four programs with combined resources that dwarf most of the tournament field. UConn is going to its third Final Four in four years. Alex Karaban has been the tournament's most consistent performer through three rounds. This program has been here before and they show it every time the pressure gets highest.
Illinois has the best adjusted offensive efficiency in the country and a roster that coach Brad Underwood has built through one of the most creative international recruiting networks in college basketball — five players from five different countries. The talent is there and it has been built systematically over several years.
Michigan has the best defense left in the tournament by adjusted efficiency. Their frontcourt is physically imposing in a way that few teams can match. Yaxel Lendeborg scored 27 points in the Elite Eight. This is what happens when a program with Michigan's resources and history rebuilds correctly.
Arizona is the most balanced team remaining. Top ten in both offensive and defensive efficiency. No single weakness anyone has consistently exploited. Eight players contributing in their Elite Eight win. This is what deep, well-funded recruiting looks like in practice.
What the Tournament Means
I am not going to tell you that the exceptions do not matter. They do. Iowa's run was genuinely wonderful. High Point's first tournament win is a real thing that happened and deserves real celebration. Nebraska's Sweet Sixteen is a moment that program's fans will remember for a long time.
But the structural story of this tournament is that the programs with the most resources, the best coaching, and the most talent are increasingly the ones in the building on the final weekend. That is not a complaint. That is an observation. The tournament is still thrilling. It is still the best recurring sporting event in America. The human drama of single-elimination basketball cannot be manufactured or purchased.
It is just that the programs most likely to be in a position to experience that drama on the final weekend are the ones that have been building toward it year-round, with resources and recruiting pipelines that the mid-majors cannot fully match.
The championship game is Monday, April 6th in Indianapolis. Four programs. Four green jackets' worth of tradition. Enjoy every minute of what is left.
— Cannon Simmons, The Glue Guy Podcast