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Houston didn't join the Big 12 until 2023. So you left them off of at least 2019. Missed Nevada in 2018. Mostly, though, 1-2 teams outside of the P6 conferences make the Sweet 16. I think if you look deeper at the bracketing, though, some of that is manufactured by the seedings and pairings. Almost every year the 2 best, or 2 of the top 3 "Mid major" teams are pitted against each other in the first round. Or they are setup against a powerhouse in the round of 32 (see FAU in 2024. Had they beaten Northwestern they would have had to face top overall seed UCONN next). Get past that, and they face San Diego St or UAB in the Sweet 16. That's the 3 best mid-majors in the tournament, all lined up to face defending National Champ UCONN. 2024 was the worst year for it. Look at some of these first round pairings: East Bracket: 5 San Diego St vs 12 UAB West Bracket: 5 Saint Mary's vs 12 Grand Canyon 7 Dayton vs 10 Nevada Midwest Bracket: 5 Gonzaga vs 12 McNeese (30-3) When you look at schools who come from G5 conferences (not counting all the basketball only schools), only FAU and Utah St were given first round games against schools NOT in other G5 conferences. Go back through your 2021-2024 brackets and you'll see a lot of the same. This year, 2025, you didn't see it as much. Why? Not sure, other than there really wasn't a G5 school, or even a collection of them, that looked like they would really threaten to go deep into the tournament. Up until the free transfer floodgates opened after 2024, mid-majors had an advantage over the schools chasing 1 and done NBA lottery types because we could keep a team together for 4 years and beat them collectively. That's been the case since Butler and Wichita St led the way in the late aughts and through the 2010s. Those days are long gone.

More coming 🥷

And it did for Mac, as well. Ross is going to win big, as well. Maybe not quite as much as Mac, with Tech throwing more money at basketball than most schools, but he's still going to win a lot. UNT had 2 of the best coaches in America leading us for the past 8 years. Don't kid yourself.

We've kinda joked about this before with post-season CFB portal windows...but we are really getting close to a point where the player shows up to the game, takes off his hoodie, only for us to discover he's now playing for the other team this week. Sometimes you have to burn it all down so you can grow it back better.

Isaac Sohn, Anderson-Dale, B Charles enter portal