Sweet!

This Year’s Men’s Sweet Sixteen Raises the Question: Is There a Dominant Conference in College Basketball?

By Brady Lynch|Updated on July 6, 2023 (originally published on March 27, 2023)

With the Sweet 16 in the books, we can only imagine the chaos coming our way in the homestretch of March Madness as the first two rounds of the tournament were filled with upsets, buzzer beaters and emerging Cinderella stories. It's the moments like those that make it so easy to get emotionally attached to this annual month-long event that showcases the best of college basketball. And with such a wide variety of teams featured in the Sweet 16 last week, it poses the question about whether or not there is a dominant conference in men's college basketball anymore.

The past 30 years, every team that has been crowned a champion has come from the Big East, or a “Power 5” conference, which consists of the ACC, SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12. Prior to last Thursday's tip off of the 2023 March Madness tournament, 64 teams qualified for these coveted spots in the bracket, representing 32 different conferences across the nation. Out of this field, 32 teams were automatic bids, winning their respective league, while the other 36 were chosen by a committee as “at-large bids” based on record, conference, and strength of schedule.

Leading the number of at-large bids for the tournament this year was the SEC and the Big 10, who both sent 8 teams from their conferences to the NCAA tournament, followed closely behind by the Big 12 who sent 7. Of those 23 powerhouses that found themselves on the big stage, only 6 remain. Could this possibly be the year that we see a champion emerge from a conference that isn't in the Big East or Power 5?

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With no remaining 1-seeds left in the bracket, it is anyone's for the taking. Both FAU and SDSU are the outliers in this equation, representing Conference USA and the Mountain West conference in the Elite 8 this weekend. With that being said, how can you not root for one of these teams to pull off the ultimate Cinderella story?

Is it worth questioning whether or not there needs to be a dominant conference, or are we beginning to see an evened out playing field, with talent spread more widely across the nation than ever before. Gone are the days where Duke, UNC, Kansas and Kentucky are dominating teams deep into the tournament, at least for this year. It's been pretty amazing to see these athletes from so many different conferences compete at the highest level on such a magnified stage. This March has already been full of Madness, and we still have a lot of basketball left these next couple of weekends.

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