Why the expanded NCAA Tournament makes a Cinderella story even less likely

The NCAA is trying to sell its new 76-team field as a great opportunity for everyone, including the mid-majors.

Every NCAA Tournament win is worth an additional revenue credit for a school’s league, called a unit. The idea is that adding six automatic qualifiers for an opening-round game gives those schools and conferences more opportunities for tourney victories. An opening-round win is worth just as much as a first-round win.

“So that’s gonna be great,” Selection Committee chair Keith Gill said on a conference call this week.

Is it really, though?

When was the last time you saw a highlight from the First Four in the One Shining Moment montage? A win in the opening round is simply an entry into the field of 64, where the real NCAA Tournament begins. The change to 76 teams could lead to more upsets, but not the kind that put the madness in March Madness.

A simulation by The Athletic’s Austin Mock found that if this year’s field had expanded to 76 teams, the probability of an upset on the 4-13, 5-12 and 6-11 lines would increase (see chart). That’s because those lower-seeded teams would be more populated by high-major and mid-major plus programs.

The true mid-majors and low-majors are likely to move down a seed line. For instance, High Point, which as a 12 seed upset Wisconsin, would have dropped to a 13 seed in a 76-team model, and its odds would have fallen from 20 percent to 13 percent. VCU, which upset North Carolina in a 6-11 game, would be a 12-seed in the expanded field, and its odds would drop from 36 percent to 23 percent.

In Mock’s model, Northern Iowa was the only mid-major to see its upset odds improve, moving from a 16 percent chance to beat No. 5-seeded St. John’s to a 17 percent chance of knocking off No. 4 Kansas.

There may be a slight advantage to playing a play-in game in the tourney, based on results since the field expanded to 68 in 2011. At-large teams that have played their way in from the First Four have a 13-17 record in the first round, winning 43.3 percent of the time. Based on odds at KenPom.com, the average odds for those lower-seeded teams were 36.7 percent, meaning they’ve outperformed their odds by 6.6 percent.

Two caveats, however. One, the odds are better for those games when the lower-seeded team is a high-major, and high-majors have performed better overall in those games.

Two, while teams outside of a power conference started 5-2 in those games, they are 0-5 since and have not won since Wichita State in 2016. The Shockers were underseeded and actually a favorite that year, given a 50.5 percent chance of knocking off Arizona.

The committee has improved at seeding teams in recent years, with more advanced formulas like the NET and Wins Above Bubble in its arsenal. The only lower-seeded play-in winner since Wichita State to be a favorite was Colorado in 2010, when it was the No. 10 seed. In the new model, no 10 seeds would compete in the play-in game.

While the expanded field could lead to a few more units (and dollars) for mid-major leagues, it is now statistically less likely for a mid-major team to pull off an upset. With the transfer portal and NIL, it had already become more difficult for low- and mid-major teams to compete. This change only made it harder.