If the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is any indication, Cinderella runs in college basketball might be on life support.
And if the sport can’t fix what was once its tournament lifeblood, then Stephen A. Smith has major concerns about its viability moving forward.
On Monday’s episode of First Take, ESPN’s $100 million man discussed the topic du jour, which is the chalky nature of the first and second rounds in this year’s tournament. And while Jay Williams already declared NIL “the death of of mid-major Cinderella runs,” he wasn’t the only ESPN employee with the grim reaper on his mind.
“If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball,” Smith said.
The blunt nature of Smith’s statement appeared to catch Seth Greenberg off guard, with the ESPN college basketball analyst raising his eyebrows in apparent shock.
“Listen to what I’m saying, coach: this has no effect on the allure of college basketball during the season,” Smith continued. “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.”
“If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball.” 😯@stephenasmith weighs in on college basketball not having Cinderella teams pic.twitter.com/Km2HlCCjRv
— First Take (@FirstTake) March 24, 2025
Smith went on to point out that while there are still diehard fanbases that follow college basketball during the regular season, the sport’s biggest draw remains the NCAA Tournament. And a big reason why is the idea that “anybody has a chance because of Cinderella” — a notion that’s not as easy to pitch with a Sweet 16 solely comprised of power conferences.
Like many, Smith pointed to NIL and the transfer portal as the primary culprits for why mid-majors seem to have less of a chance now than they did just two years ago, when Florida Atlantic and San Diego State both crashed the Final Four. And while he admitted his take might be considered “drastic” and “hyperbolic” by some, he also made it clear that he was doing more than merely playing the result.
“If there was no NIL, if there was no [transfer] portal and you have the mid-majors go 0-6 in the second round, please, we ain’t sweating that,” Smith said. “But when you’re able to point to rules that have been implemented that ultimately shows itself to have inflicted upon the game itself, that’s dangerous. Because what you don’t want is a situation where nobody has a chance because those players from the mid-majors say, ‘you know what? We’re going to get some money from Kentucky. We’re going to get some money from UConn. We’re going to get some money from some other program that we can’t get here.’
“You don’t want that to be the reason you have these kinds of results in the NCAA Tournament. 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.”
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