Why have upsets increased in the NCAA Tournament in recent years? | College Basketball Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss the upsets so far in the NCAA Tournament, and debate how the transfer portal, NIL and the added COVID year has changed the complexion of the NCAA Tournament over the last few years.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: What podcast out there would have ever predicted that the transfer portal and NIL would not destroy the competitive balance? I hadn't heard that. I hadn't heard that argument anywhere. I thought it was wild, wild west. We're all doomed.
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Let's look at all these upsets the last two years and then this year. So maybe we're not going to statistically hit just quite as high. But again, the 15s. And we don't have an answer, but why? Why all of a sudden-- I mean, this is not a new tournament.
PAT FORDE: Right. No.
DAN WETZEL: This is a field that's been essentially the same since '85. Obviously, we added four more, but that hasn't really played a big role in this. Why? Is it the COVID extra year? Is it the transfer portal where guys-- we don't think of these transfers, but Fairleigh Dickinson had a whole slew of guys--
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: --come in, right? They just restocked the team. Is it NIL that's allowing some guys to find some different spaces where there's some money? And it's what I always call-- we've talked about this. An active dollar, not a passive dollar. Kentucky spends a passive dollar. They build the nicest facility in the world, and it takes a long time to build it, and then you have to get recruits on to see it. That type of stuff. And then there's an active dollar of like, come here, and we'll get you 20 grand.
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: It's just going straight to players. And maybe that not necessarily wins you the number-one recruit or the number-one transfer, but it wins you some guys that will fill in. And you go, hey, what the hell? I don't know. I mean, frickin' Pitino was talking about NIL and stuff like that. Has all of these-- what is it?
PAT FORDE: I think it's all of that. I do think the extra COVID year and the transfer portal have combined to make a major impact. I mean, some of these teams are so old. Texas is incredibly old. You talk about a specific guy, like Kansas State's got Desi Sills. 156 games played in college, I believe. San Diego State, Matt Bradley, 152. There's just guys been around forever.
DAN WETZEL: DeAndre Williams--
PAT FORDE: Is 26.
DAN WETZEL: --is 26 years old, yeah.
PAT FORDE: Yeah. Uros Plavsic, the enforcer for Tennessee, who put Kyle Filipowski's 19-year-old ass on the deck twice in the first minute and a half and could have maybe gotten himself thrown out of the game for it but didn't, but set the tone of men versus boys. Uros Plavsic is 24 years old.
DAN WETZEL: Yeah.
PAT FORDE: Filipowski is 19. It's like, oh, OK, we got some men out here playing. And so I think that's had a lot to do with it, just guys that have played a lot more basketball, more physically mature, more mentally mature. And they are spread out a little bit more. Than portal has-- look, you go where you can play, right? The portal has not sent everybody to one school or the other school. It's spread people out as much as anything else. So that's had to do with it.
The NIL stuff, I think, it's too early to get returns on whether that's really played a part here. But it's clear it's helped keep some guys in school. Drew Timme's still in school at age 100. Tyger Campbell and Jaime Jaquez at UCLA, who we've been-- I said UCLA is like looking at some family you see every week in church that sits in the same pew, in the same order, and wear the same things.
Tyger Campbell's got his big hair. Jaime Jaquez has got his white headband. Mick Cronin's got his suit. And they look the same. They play the same. They've been doing the same thing for three years together. It shows.
DAN WETZEL: I'm stunned to hear this, Pat. What podcast out there would have ever predicted that the transfer portal and NIL would not destroy the competitive balance?
PAT FORDE: I don't know.
DAN WETZEL: I hadn't heard that. I hadn't heard that argument anywhere. I thought it was wild, wild, west. We're all doomed.
ROSS DELLENGER: Well, we talk about football too. It's the same thing. I think the portal has dispersed talent more and spread it out across the country. Those players who would be sitting the bench, so to speak, are now playing and having bigger roles a lot of times for these smaller schools. And I think we're seeing it play out in both sports where the portal really is positively impacting parity in sports.
PAT FORDE: I will say real quick, one area where we do know NIL has made an impact, Miami. Nijel Pack, who got the alleged 800 grand deal, he scored 21 in the first round, had 12 in the second round. So NIL doing some work--
ROSS DELLENGER: Return on investment.
PAT FORDE: --for Miami. Yes.
ROSS DELLENGER: ROI for Mr. John Ruiz.
DAN WETZEL: The LifeWallet. Yeah, the LifeWallet came in pretty sweet on that.
