If there was a head coach in college basketball who knows anything about a Cinderella run, it’s Dusty May. In 2023, May led the nine-seeded FAU Owls all the way to the final four, with their championship dreams falling short by one point in a 72-71 Final Four loss to San Diego State.
Cinderella runs are one of the best parts about March Madness, but with the current NIL and transfer portal landscape, many believe that there are going to be fewer and fewer mid-majors making deep runs, and May seems to agree.
Dusty May Thinks NIL Hurts Cinderella’s Chances in March
In a press conference, May was asked if he thinks that Mid-Major programs are going to have a harder time making runs in March due to the transfer portal and NIL. May’s response was “I don’t think Cinderella’s dead, but I don’t think she’ll be making as many visits as before.”
Michigan coach and former FAU coach Dusty May on whether the NIL/portal will change the little guys going deep in the tourney:
“I don’t think Cinderella’s dead, but I don’t think she’ll be making as many visits as before.”
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 27, 2025
I think May’s description of this is perfect. NIL and the transfer portal make it way harder for mid-majors to develop and keep the talent they have because if a player is good enough, bigger schools can easily lure them away with bigger paychecks.
It puts the smaller schools with less money at a huge disadvantage as they just simply cannot keep up with the bigger programs’ pocketbooks.
The Cinderella runs of the past came from gritty mid-major teams that had numerous seniors who had been there since their freshman year, with experience and chemistry that helped them take down the bigger schools.
While, in theory, this could still happen, it will happen less frequently than before.
College athletes’ ability to make money from their name, image, and likeness became legal in 2021. If you look at the 2021 March Madness bracket, four double-digit seeded teams were in the Sweet 16, with 11-seeded UCLA making it all the way to the final four.
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In turn, this year, there is only one double-digit seed in the Sweet 16. This is a small sample size, but as May suspects, it’s likely a sign of things to come as fewer and fewer Cinderella runs happen every year.
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