In this week’s AP Top 25 and USA Today Coaches polls, two different teams held the No. 1 spots. Auburn topped the AP poll and Alabama was No. 1 in the coaches poll.
That helps how tight things are in college basketball this season without a consensus No. 1 team. Kansas coach Bill Self sees the amount of parity, and he evaluated the reason for it.
Player movement and NIL, Self said, are the reason for so much craziness in college basketball. Because dollars help disperse talent to other teams, he said upsets – at least, those on paper – are becoming more of the norm.
“Absolutely,” Self said when asked if there’s parity in college hoops this year. “The reason is in the past, certain programs may get three guys that are all rated in the top 15 in America on one roster. Now, you couldn’t afford to get three guys like that, so they’re going different places.
“So I’d say there’s more parity, and I would say there’s a bigger chance for what is perceived to be an upset in today’s game than what is actually an upset just because of everybody’s gonna have guys that are good enough to pay. And you don’t pay guys unless they’re good enough to beat teams that also [have] real guys. So yeah. I’d say there’s more parity.”
How college basketball changed with NIL, portal
During the 2024 recruiting cycle, the Top 20 prospects in the country went to 15 different programs. That’s up from the 2021 cycle – just before NIL came to be – when the top 20 players dispersed across 11 schools.
Of course, the transfer portal also makes for more movement once players get to the college level. During the 2024 portal cycle, more than 2,000 players hit the open market. That includes six players who headed to Kansas to play for Bill Self, led by former Wisconsin guard AJ Storr. He was the No. 9 overall player in the On3 Industry Transfer Rankings.
As a result, the race to March Madness is getting more interesting. The SEC in the driver’s seat, though, with 13 bids in the projected field, according to On3’s latest Bracketology. Three teams – Auburn, Alabama and Tennessee – came in on the 1-seed line, and the conference leads the nation in efficiency by a wide margin, according to KenPom.
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