{"id":512725,"date":"2026-03-20T05:42:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T05:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/512725\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T05:42:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T05:42:37","slug":"college-basketball-is-better-than-ever-in-2026-and-we-all-have-nil-to-thank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/512725\/","title":{"rendered":"College basketball is better than ever in 2026 \u2014 and we all have NIL to thank"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was only three seasons ago, before the beginning of the 2023-24 season, that I worried, in the pages of another publication<\/a>, that men\u2019s college basketball might be doomed. This was not an unreasonable worry.<\/p>\n

It looked like everything was conspiring against the sport. Widespread loosening of transfer rules and eligibility requirements had made it nearly impossible to track who played where. The Wild West era of realignment, entirely orchestrated by and constructed for college football, had torn apart some of college basketball\u2019s biggest rivalries and left it seemingly a second-class citizen whose fate lay entirely at the whim of a handful of football-obsessed television executives.<\/p>\n

The sport had zero household names, with only one of the at-the-time top four<\/a> projected NBA Draft picks even playing college basketball, and only one player on the preseason All-American team even projected to be selected in the first round. (That player was Kyle Filipowski, not exactly the sort of electrifying player your kid puts up a poster of.) That March, the women\u2019s Final Four, highlighted by Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark, would earn better television ratings<\/a> than the men\u2019s for the first time.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s college basketball had no juice. It looked increasingly abandoned by the larger culture and, all told, kind of pointless. Being a die-hard college basketball fan \u2014 as I am, and will forever be \u2014 felt like being one of the last people still using typewriters or going to a skating rink. We were the last people who still hadn\u2019t left the bar.<\/p>\n

It no longer feels that way. As someone who has adored men\u2019s college basketball since he cried for hours in his bedroom because the referees didn\u2019t call<\/a> traveling on Kentucky\u2019s Dickey Beal, I am not sure the sport itself has ever been better than it is right now \u2014 and even, potentially, set up to remain healthy long-term.<\/p>\n

I understand this is not a popular opinion. College basketball has changed so much, in such a short amount of time, that it can look almost unrecognizable to older fans. A sport that once prided itself on its amateurism now spends a reported (and likely underreported)<\/a> near-billion dollars on name, image and likeness budgets.<\/p>\n

But it is through these changes that the sport has discovered its salvation. Three years since my existential panic about college hoops, the sport has superstar players, vibrant personalities and innovative gameplay while still maintaining the basic structure and foundation that makes it so unique and its fans so passionate. I do not know if I\u2019ve ever had more fun watching college basketball than I have this year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m telling you: This sport is great right now. And the reason is obvious: We\u2019re paying the players. Because of that simple (and long overdue) fix, there are stars everywhere. And we at last know who they are.<\/p>\n

The Atlanta Hawks drafted Zaccharie Risacher with the first pick two years ago. If Hawks fans wanted to be excited about the pick, they simply had to take it on faith: Almost no one had actually seen Risacher play. The same was true for fellow top-10 picks Alex Sarr, Tidjane Sala\u00fcn and Matas Buzelis, all of whom had played only overseas or in the G League before being picked.<\/p>\n

2023 was the same way: Scoot Henderson, Amen and Ausar Thompson and Bilal Coulibaly were all total strangers to any American sports fan. (Victor Wembanyama is the obvious exception.) Those players didn\u2019t play college basketball because there was no reason for them to. They couldn\u2019t get paid.<\/p>\n

In a world, though, where college basketball players are not only paid but also paid at highly competitive rates \u2014 in many instances, more than they would get paid as an NBA benchwarmer or second-round pick \u2014 suddenly, the next generation of NBA stars are in college for the entire world to see. Thirteen of the top 14 picks in Sam Vecenie\u2019s most recent mock draft<\/a> will all play in this year\u2019s tournament, and the only one who won\u2019t, North Carolina\u2019s Caleb Wilson, is because of injury. (There\u2019s only one player in Vecenie\u2019s first round, the New Zealand Breakers\u2019 Karim Lopez, who did not play college basketball in 2025-26.)<\/p>\n

But this doesn\u2019t mean college basketball has become a feeder league for the NBA. Players who might have risked leaving college early for the draft despite only a second-round projection can stay and make money, which leads to the sort of traditional college star we\u2019d lost for nearly a decade: a guy who sticks around for years (just maybe not on your preferred team), excelling in the sport despite not quite being NBA caliber, populating rosters everywhere. Michigan\u2019s Yaxel Lendeborg, a first-team All-American, is precisely the sort of player college basketball traditionally loses, a projected mid-to-late-first-round pick who, because of NIL, stayed and ended up powering a fantastic Michigan team to a No. 1 seed while being one of the more magnetic personalities you\u2019ll see in this tournament.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got high school recruits flocking to campus again, established stars sticking around, and you\u2019ve got international players realizing American college teams are a logical (and financially lucrative) place to build your brand and play in front of roaring crowds. This is ultimately advantageous to the NBA as well; these players are now pre-branded, already in the public consciousness of the average sports fan. The NBA won\u2019t have to explain to us<\/a> who Darryn Peterson or Darius Acuff Jr. is.<\/p>\n

This wide variety of players has also allowed college basketball to have stylistic differences that, frankly, not even the NBA has. Some teams play five-out with shooters everywhere; some teams play traditional post-up, back-to-the-basket; some teams run like mad; some teams are molasses, Tony Bennett-slow. We\u2019ll see all these teams in the tournament. What does Braden Smith look like playing against AJ Dybantsa? The bigs of Michigan against Nate Oats\u2019 run-and-gun at Alabama? This is the week we find all that out.<\/p>\n

And, of course, there is this week<\/a>, this tournament<\/a>, the trump card college basketball always has available to play. Because everything you love about college basketball is still, in fact, here. The brackets<\/a>. The plucky underdogs<\/a>. The hipster upsets. Eccentric personalities<\/a>, from the McNeese student manager<\/a> or the random former top recruit who suddenly goes nuts and scores 44 points for Penn to St. Louis folk hero Robbie Avila, the goggled man of a million nicknames. (I\u2019m a \u201cCream Abdul-Jabbar\u201d guy myself.) Moments you\u2019ll never forget<\/a> from teams you didn\u2019t know existed before. There\u2019s even the nostalgia that comes with watching this tournament your entire life: Did you know Speedy Claxton, Rod Strickland and Gerry McNamara are all coaching in this tournament? I swear those guys were just playing!<\/p>\n

Look: I know college basketball isn\u2019t the way it once was. I once exchanged Econ 105 notes with Illinois point guard Matt Heldman at his dorm after practice, and that\u2019s probably not happening today. I know players transfer constantly, and they might not have the deep-seated connection to the university you do or would like them to. (Bad news: The latter has always been true.) I know a large part of the appeal of college basketball to a lot of people is a sort of purity, a supposed altruistic innocence that was never really there, but we pretended it was.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019re right. It\u2019s not the same sport. I have watched college basketball since I was old enough to watch anything. This is as good as it has been. College basketball, remarkably, almost by accident, finds itself not just limping along, a relic of a past age, but in fact thriving. Come back to it. Let it in. You won\u2019t regret it.<\/p>\n

First
Round<\/p>\n

Second
Round<\/p>\n

Sweet 16<\/p>\n

Elite
Eight<\/p>\n

Final
Four<\/p>\n

Final
Four<\/p>\n

Elite
Eight<\/p>\n

Sweet 16<\/p>\n

Second
Round<\/p>\n

First
Round<\/p>\n