If the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is any indication, Cinderella runs in college basketball might be on life support. Stephen A. Smith expressed major concerns about the sport’s viability moving forward, especially if it can’t address what was once its tournament lifeblood.
On Monday’s episode of First Take, ESPN’s $100 million man discussed the chalky nature of the tournament’s first and second rounds. While Jay Williams already declared that NIL is “the death of mid-major Cinderella runs,” he was not alone in voicing such concerns. “If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball,” Smith stated, catching ESPN college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg off guard.
Smith elaborated, “Listen to what I’m saying, coach: this has no effect on the allure of college basketball during the season. But March Madness owns sports for that four-to-five week period beginning somewhere in March through the early part of April. It owns sports.”
“If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball.” 😯 @stephenasmith weighs in on college basketball not having Cinderella teams pic.twitter.com/Km2HlCCjRv
— First Take (@FirstTake) March 24, 2025
While acknowledging that there are still dedicated fanbases during the regular season, Smith emphasized that the NCAA Tournament remains the sport’s biggest attraction. The notion of “anybody has a chance because of Cinderella” becomes harder to sell when a Sweet 16 is purely composed of power conferences. He pointed to NIL and the transfer portal as significant reasons why mid-majors seem to have diminished chances compared to just two years ago, when Florida Atlantic and San Diego State made surprising runs to the Final Four.
Though he admitted his view might be seen as “drastic” or “hyperbolic,” he insisted he was not merely playing to the results. “If there was no NIL, if there was no [transfer] portal and you have the mid-majors go 0-6 in the second round, we wouldn’t be sweating that. But when you can point to implemented rules that have impacted the game, that’s dangerous.” He cautioned against a situation where players from mid-majors feel compelled to pursue money from larger programs, stating, “You don’t want that to be the reason for these kinds of results in the NCAA Tournament.”
Smith concluded, “If that continues, then college basketball as we knew it — which to me is all about March Madness — will cease to exist. Because there’s no madness.”
