If you’re like me and couldn’t resist loading up your March Madness bracket with mid-major upsets, you’re probably sitting in the bottom 30% of the leaderboard. At this point, it’s fair to say we’ve learned our lesson about trusting Cinderella, especially against power conference teams. Whether that lesson sticks when we fill out our brackets next year remains to be seen. In the meantime, we’re left considering that the era of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal may have effectively closed the door on mid-majors making deep runs. Jay Williams certainly thinks so.
On Monday’s episode of Get Up, he argued that NIL is stifling Cinderella stories, stripping mid-majors of their best talent before they get a chance to shine in March. The days of teams like George Mason or Loyola Chicago shocking the world might be fading, giving way to a system where top mid-major players are poached before they can even dream of a Final Four. “I think my biggest takeaway of everything over the weekend was that NIL is the death of mid-major Cinderella runs,” the former Duke Blue Devils star remarked. “It still can happen, but I think it’s gonna be more of a rarity.”
Why is this the case? “We’re likely to see a lot of players at schools like Colorado State, McNeese, and Drake poached by mid-level Power Four and Power Five conferences,” Williams explained. “Teams in the middle of the pack in conferences like the Big Ten and Big 12 will say, ‘Hey, we’ll give you 4x or 5x what you’re earning at your mid-major.’ My conversations with mid-major coaches consistently reveal their primary complaint: retention. ‘We can’t hold onto players because these Power Four schools are taking them away from us.’ That’s why we’re seeing so much chalk this tournament; there are no mid-majors left, just the big boys. I think this trend will continue moving forward.
“NIL is the death of mid-major Cinderella runs. … It still can happen, but I think it’s going to be more of a rarity.”
—@RealJayWilliams on the impact of NIL in college basketball pic.twitter.com/Z4xguBu7Hj
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) March 24, 2025
It’s a grim outlook, but it feels increasingly undeniable with each tournament. Williams didn’t shy away from this reality — his bracket was as chalky as they come. The results underscored his point; UC San Diego nearly toppled Michigan, Robert Morris challenged Alabama, and High Point brought the fight to Purdue. However, pushing a team to its limits and actually winning are two different things. McNeese State barely secured a win against Clemson, only to be overwhelmed by Purdue. Meanwhile, while Colorado State achieved a classic 12-over-5 upset against Memphis, they suffered a heartbreaking exit against Maryland, losing on a controversial buzzer-beater. Without that shot, the Rams — not the Terrapins — would be in the Sweet 16. And let’s be honest, Colorado State was under-seeded to begin with. But that’s beside the point.
Maybe Cinderella isn’t dead, but she’s certainly running out of time before midnight strikes.
