The 2025 NCAA Tournament was filled with notable discussions over its three-week span, some of which have attracted criticism from longtime Fox Sports broadcaster Tim Brando. Early in the tournament, media members were largely unimpressed by the absence of Cinderella teams advancing, a phenomenon that some attribute to the talent influx from the transfer portal each year.
In a conversation with Pete Mundo from Heartland College Sports, Brando expressed his frustration with the narrative that the transfer portal and NIL have “killed” the NCAA Tournament’s chance for Cinderella stories. He also defended Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson, who faced backlash for his remarks following the National Championship game. “I am so sick and tired, I am so pissed off at the way the modern sports media trashes college athletics,” Brando stated. He criticized the narrative claiming, “Oh, it’s terrible. Cinderella is dead. The NIL and the portal killed it,” especially after witnessing some remarkable games in the Sweet 16. He questioned why the media would criticize Sampson for expressing concern over Houston’s performance, stating, “That’s what the media portrayal of Kelvin is? That is B.S. with a capital B and S. Those kids love him. I’m sure (J’Wan) Roberts wishes he had made a couple of those bunnies that were given to him that he didn’t put in. How about the missed dunks? We can go over and over where points were lost. First and second half for Houston. But you’ve got to give Florida credit, man.”
Later on, Brando was asked if he believes the transfer portal and NIL are “healthy” for college basketball. While he acknowledged the need for further regulation, Brando doesn’t view them as detrimental to the sport. “I don’t think that it’s healthy necessarily. But it’s not the death knell. College athletics hasn’t gone to hell. Even with all the media noise about Cinderella not being a factor, the Sweet 16 and the Final Four showcased that these kids are giving their all, whether they are getting money or not, providing us a tremendous product.”
Brando also remarked that the three weeks of the NCAA Tournament are still the best in college athletics, emphasizing that the Final Four, particularly the semi-final Saturday, is the pinnacle of college sports. “I don’t care what the helmet heads say about the College Football Playoff. It’s not as great a day as the Saturday Semifinals of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. It’s not.” Additionally, he noted how many national media personalities claimed that the lack of Cinderellas would mark the ‘death of college basketball’. While there might eventually be a link between the emergence of the transfer portal and fewer upsets in the NCAA Tournament, the excitement surrounding this season’s Final Four suggests that the claim of this year’s tournament being uninteresting is indeed premature.
