The madness before March Madness: Cinderella teams are born in this week’s conference tournaments

There are 365 teams in Division I men’s college basketball; 363 in women’s college basketball. Only 68 qualify for the NCAA Tournament on each side, and many of those 68 teams in each bracket have already conquered the madness of March.

America is enthralled by the NCAA Tournament each year, picking brackets, slacking off during work hours to watch the games, wrapped up in the high-stakes, single-elimination basketball where every loss means the end of seasons and careers, and every win is a magical tale to be told for years to come.

There’s more where that came from.

Having begun on March 2 and running all the way up to the Selection Show on the 15th, there is high-stakes, single-elimination men’s college basketball every single day. While the numbers whittle down from 68 to leave us with one team standing over the three weeks of NCAA Tournament action, the two weeks prior bring us from nearly 365 all the way down to 68. And that’s just on the men’s side.

Each of Division I’s 31 conferences do it slightly differently, but they all award an automatic bid to the Big Dance for their postseason champion.

Every low seed has a story

You may not think much about the 14, 15, and 16 seeds that you pick to get walked over in the first round by traditional powerhouses, but behind each of those games is a deeply fascinating story that culminated in a conference tournament championship.

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville lost 78-40 to top-seeded Houston in last year’s NCAA Tournament. SIU’s exit may have seemed brutally unceremonious, but for head coach Brian Barone, it was the moment he’d been waiting for his entire life. When Barone accepted the head coaching job in 2019, he hung a framed pair of scissors over the locker room door, symbolizing the goal of winning the program’s first ever Division I conference championship and earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

He built the team from consistent cellar dwellers in the Ohio Valley Conference into a respectable threat, and finally broke through with his best season in 2024-25, led by four-year player Ray’Sean Taylor.

After winning the OVC Championship, Barone and his players broke the frame and cut down the net with those scissors, an emotional journey that encapsulates the spirit of why America falls in love with March Madness.

A year prior, Wagner College won road games against the three top finishers in the Northeast Conference to clinch one of the most improbable conference tournament championships in recent memory. The Seahawks were bruised and battered by injury all year long, down to just seven scholarship players available for the entire tournament, but defeated three teams that it went a combined 1-5 against during the regular season.

No second chances

Like game-winners and crazy finishes? We’ve got plenty of those. Everybody is laying everything on the line. No second chances.

And for these schools, a trip to the NCAA Tournament isn’t just a banner to hang. It’s an opportunity for institutional growth in a landscape where that has become nearly impossible to accomplish.

With the recent changes in college athletics due to revenue sharing and NIL, the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown even wider. It’s becoming increasingly difficult financially to sustain Division I athletics, but March Madness provides the opportunity for that. Each game that a team plays in the NCAA Tournament earns their conference a payout over the course of the next six years, known as an NCAA Tournament unit, that was worth a reported $2 million in 2024 for a total payout pool in excess of $200 million. The conference then splits that money between its schools.

In 2025, the NCAA paid out units for the women’s tournament for the first time, a step in the right direction even if the reported total payout pool is much smaller, only around $15 million.

But the potential financial gains of a March Madness appearance go beyond just the NCAA Tournament units. It gives your school two hours in front of a national television audience to market itself. Even in a loss, the airtime gives the school exposure. But a win? That could change everything.

Florida Gulf Coast is perhaps the greatest example of this, as their 2013 run to the Sweet 16 drove a more than 25% surge in applications.

It never would’ve happened if the Eagles didn’t end North Florida, Stetson, and Mercer’s seasons in the Atlantic Sun Tournament.

Two weeks that change lives

Ask any mid-major player or coach—and trust me, I have—what their goal is for a given season, and you’ll always hear them say to reach March Madness. These two weeks are their opportunity to do that. It changes coaches’ lives—earns them opportunities to get higher-paying jobs—and does the same for players in the NIL era. 

But for the senior players who have passed up the opportunity to play at other schools for more money (Quinnipiac star Amarri Monroe, for example) this week is the chance to reap the rewards for that loyalty. It’s crushing to see these players lose, but exhilarating to see others win.

All of the emotions that you associate with March Madness are on display tenfold in championship week. Just because you can’t point to either school on a map doesn’t mean that people don’t pour their heart and soul into it for the opportunity to play for a national championship.

Nearly 300 teams don’t make March Madness. For them, it’s raw and real.

But 31 teams—26 in mid-major conferences—will celebrate championships over the next two weeks. They’ll celebrate the culmination of years of work. And if there’s one thing we love as Americans, it’s watching as many other people succeed in their life’s mission.