Did NIL kill Cinderella? Arizona Wildcats may — or may not — offer a case study

NEWARK, N.J. — A year ago, Trey Townsend helped Oakland upset Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before collecting 30 points and 13 rebounds in a second-round overtime loss to NC State.

The Golden Grizzlies — while alerting many that they are actually from Michigan, not California — were nearly the classic definition of a Sweet 16 Cinderella. And Townsend was one of the guys who fit the glass slipper, or something like that.

“We were one play away from making it to the second weekend and it didn’t go our way,” Townsend said.

But while playing this season without Townsend, who arrived at Arizona via the transfer portal as a graduate transfer last summer, the Golden Grizzlies went 16-18 and finished with a loss in the Horizon League Tournament semifinals.

Maybe they would have won more games with Townsend, and maybe even another NCAA Tournament game or two.

At the same time, maybe Campbell might have broken through in the Coastal Athletic Tournament to reach this season’s NCAA Tournament field if the Camels still had Anthony Dell’Orso still hitting 3s and nailing critical free throws as he did Sunday in Arizona’s 87-83 second-round win over Oregon.

Nobody knows.

But this much is true: The Sweet 16 does not have a “Cinderella” or even a single non-power conference school of any type this season, leading to theories this week that the NIL-fueled transfer portal has killed her off.

After all, power conferences tend to have much greater NIL collectives than mid-majors, allowing them to gobble up top mid-major players who might otherwise stick around to lead their programs to tournament success.

But UA coach Tommy Lloyd says he’s not sure there’s enough of a “sample size” to tell what’s going on.

“I don’t know. The tournament feels like it’s just kind of a little bit different every year,” Lloyd said. “One year, there are three or four teams from non-power conferences that break through, and then this year there doesn’t happen to be really any.

“Obviously Trey Townsend was on a team at Oakland that won their first game and lost their second last year. I mean, those stories still happen. But to win this second game is really hard.”

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Maybe both things can be true: Good players follow the NIL money to power conferences, and mid-major teams still win NCAA Tournament games here or there, just not this year.

That’s how Dell’Orso views it.

NIL “does play a part in kind of getting talent, and guys wanting to jump ship because they think the grass is greener and stuff like that,” Dell’Orso said.

“But Cinderella runs and all that? Power conference teams are good. When you have an upset, it’s not always meant to be like that. In some years you don’t have as many.”

By coming to Arizona, Dell’Orso didn’t have to rely on an upset to get on the postseason stage. While the Wildcats weren’t projecting as an NCAA Tournament seed when they were 4-5 in December, they are regulars in college basketball’s marquee event.

That’s hardly the case at Campbell, or for almost any team playing in what are often called “one-bid leagues.” Since those conferences don’t usually receive any at-large NCAA Tournament berths, only their tournament winner goes to the NCAA Tournament with its automatic bid.

“We had tournament potential” at Campbell, Dell’Orso said. “The hard thing about mid-major is winning your conference tournament. So it’s not so much like ‘I want to chase money,’ or ‘I don’t think we’re good enough, so I’m gonna leave because I don’t want to trust the coaches and the teammates.’

“You can win the regular season, you can all go to the championship, like my freshman year (2022-23). We were the eight-seed, went to the championship and we lost. We did all that hard work, and we came up short by four points to make March Madness. That was our chance. It’s just so difficult to make it.”

As such, Dell’Orso says what Townsend helped Oakland do last season, winning the Horizon League Tournament and then beating Kentucky, was “a historic thing.”

But here’s the deal about that: Townsend still didn’t make the Sweet 16 with Oakland.

Yet he just did with Arizona.

“To be on a team like this, that makes the second weekend is such a special thing,” Townsend said. “I’m very excited.”