Mid-majors face even bigger climb this year
The economic downturn across college sports caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led Drake to slash its athletic department’s budget, including a quarter of what the private university in Des Moines, Iowa, spends on its men’s basketball program.
Earning a bid to the NCAA tournament won’t pull Drake out of its financial hole, but every little bit helps. For the Missouri Valley Conference, getting an extra team into the field could mean another $1.8 million — give or take — for the league to distribute to its 10 members over the next six years.
That only increases the stakes for the Bulldogs at this weekend’s MVC tournament in St. Louis. Despite having one of the best seasons in program history, Drake (24-3) is no better than a bubble team — and one of several from outside college basketball’s big six conferences — according to those who make projections about the 68-team bracket.
The wealthiest conferences — the so-called Power Five of the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern, with the Big East (reborn sans football during the last decade) in that group when it comes to basketball — hoarding valuable at-large bids to the NCAA tourney has been a trend since realignment swept through college sports in the early 2010s.
It’s been a costly one for the conferences that don’t have billion-dollar television deals.
This pandemic-altered season seems to have marginalized the so-called mid-major conferences and programs even more — and at a time when they can really use the cash. The cancellation of March Madness last year because of the pandemic forced the NCAA to slash its revenue distribution to schools and conferences by $375 million.
“Because of COVID and because of distribution dollars being down, we had to reduce all of our budgets at Drake 15-to-25%, including basketball,” Drake athletic director Brian Hardin said. “That has an impact on how you travel and how you schedule. To now sit on the bubble, you hate to think that you’re penalized for some situations that are to a degree out of your control.”
As of Thursday, Drake was 41st in the NET rankings, which are used to help determine who makes the NCAA tourney. The Bulldogs are the No. 2 seed in the MVC tournament and play tonight after a getting a bye into the quarterfinals. Loyola-Chicago is the top seed and considered close to a sure thing to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA bracket if it does not win the MVC’s automatic bid. If Drake stumbles at any point this weekend, the Bulldogs will have to sweat it out when selections are announced March 14.
NET is not the final word when it comes to which teams make the field of 68 — the selection committee is — but its components give a glimpse at what is holding back Drake and other mid-major bubble teams back: Drake has played only six games against what the NET views as the toughest opponents in the country, teams from quads one and two. In conferences such as the Big Ten and Big 12, most teams have faced more than twice that many.
Nashville’s Belmont University earned a rare at-large NCAA bid out of the Ohio Valley Conference in 2019, then won two tournament games. Along with Murray State, which advanced to the second round, the Bruins provided a financial windfall to the OVC.
This season the Bruins are 24-3, but because their original nonconference schedule was wiped out, they have played no quad one games. That leaves Belmont with a NET of 80 heading into today’s OVC semifinals and virtually no chance of an at-large NCAA bid.
“When we started the season, most people were saying, ‘Oh, the committee’s going to have to use the eye test. The NET’s going to be not as representative because you’re not going to have all these nonconference games,’” Belmont AD Scott Corley said. “And yet here we are today, and it’s all about the NET. It’s all about those metrics again, because guess what? Those metrics all support the Power Fives.”
The Atlantic 10 usually places multiple teams in the NCAA field, and last year Dayton was headed toward the tournament as a No. 1 seed and Final Four favorite when the season shut down. This year, the A-10 is in danger of being a one-bid league.
A-10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade said she is not as concerned about the potential loss of NCAA tourney revenue as the loss of exposure.
Said McGlade: “The residual effects of being in the NCAA championship and March Madness are benefits that really pay off for institutions for many years after they’re in.”