Non B18/SEC schools that have won a BBall Title or made a Final Four since the tourney expanded to 64. There will still be a ton of high quality programs plus mid major Cinderellas that will make people interested in NCAA Basketball despite the existence of a Pro league. That is why I think they will need to go to 60-75 schools if they want to capture the whole market.
Title winners (11 programs)
Nova, Louisville, Kansas, UNLV, Duke, UNC, Arizona, UConn, Syracuse, UVA, Baylor
Who from that would go pro? UNC for sure. Likely Kansas. Maybe Zona.
Final Four (24 schools)
Georgetown, Memphis, St Johns, Providence, Seton Hall, GA Tech, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, UMass, Utah, Stanford, Marquette, George Mason, Butler, West Virginia, VCU, Wichita State, Gonzaga, Loyola, Texas Tech, Houston, San Diego State, Miami, Florida Atlantic
For the pros, probably Miami and maybe Utah.
So we are likely looking at 30 left behind programs.
Plus other ACC/B12/Big East schools that have made a Final Four in the distant past like K State, Cal, NC State, Colorado, DePaul, FSU, Iowa State, Notre Dame, Pitt, SMU, Wake.
Adding in NIT Champs since the 64 team NCAAT era we have additional schools: North Texas, Xavier, TCU, George Washington, Dayton, Tulsa, VA Tech, Southern Miss. ACC/B12/Big East further back NIT champs we have BYU.
Plus other programs like Temple and Oregon State who are Top 50 all time in Ws.
So we are looking at about 45-50 quality historic programs that get left behind. That is plenty to have significant interest and $ will follow.
