March Madness has lacked much of its trademark madness in 2025.
So much so, that one prominent voice at ESPN has expressed concerns about the sport if the trend continues.
On Monday’s episode of “First Take,” Stephen A. Smith offered a rare take about college basketball, discussing a topic that has been top of mind among those who religiously follow the sport: The lack of upsets in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
“If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball,” Smith said.
Strong words from someone who is known more for his comments on the NBA and NFL, not college hoops. The blunt nature of the statement appeared to catch former college basketball coach and ESPN CBB analyst Seth Greenberg off guard.
“Listen to what I’m saying, coach: this has no effect on the allure of college basketball during the season,” Smith said. “But March Madness, the madness of March, owns sports for that four-to-five-week period beginning somewhere in March through the early part of April. Owns sports.”
Smith, like many others, pointed toward NIL and the transfer portal as the reason for less upsets.
He added that diehards will remain committed to the sport regardless, but that the NCAA Tournament is when the entire sports world tunes in, in part because of the idea that “anybody has a chance because of Cinderella.”
“You don’t want that to be the reason you have these kinds of results in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “If people continue to get to point to that, then college basketball as we knew it — which to me is all about March Madness — will cease to exist. Because there’s no madness.”
Casual observers expect madness, upsets and buzzer beaters, in part because those get a ton of attention when they do happen. And they are cool.
But the reality is many games aren’t all that close and the vast majority of teams making deep runs in the tournament are favorites from power conferences, with major upsets usually only happening during the first weekend.
Cinderella runs of yesteryear pulled off by schools like VCU, George Mason, Loyola and Wichita State are the exceptions, not the rule.
Buzzer-beaters are also rare. Mary;and freshman Derik Queen’s runner off glass to beat Colorado State on Sunday was the first since the 2023 Final Four.
On the flip side, it was only three years ago when No. 1 Purdue lost to a 16 seed and two years ago when both Florida Atlantic and San Diego State made the Final Four, so Smith may just be being dramatic (shocker).
The ratings also don’t back up Smith’s claim that the sport is in trouble. On Tuesday, TNT and CBS reported the best NCAA Tournament viewership since 1993, averaging 9.4 million viewers through the second round.
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