Philadelphia — March Madness has become March Sadness.

Fourteen teams from the SEC.

Zero teams from the Big 5*.

Two teams from Mississippi.

Heck, two teams from Pittsburgh.

Zero teams from Philly.

None of these facts came as a surprise when CBS revealed them on its trademark Selection Sunday broadcast. For the third straight year, local college hoops fans could do little other than point at the television like Leonardo DiCaprio in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Analyst Jay Wright? Bryant head coach Phil Martelli Jr.? Hey, we know those guys.

Go Philly?

There is no greater sadness than becoming a meme.

Tangential connections to tournament glory have become the sustenance of spring. It should surprise nobody if it is an annual thing. In fact, anybody who assumes otherwise is underestimating the extent to which the game done changed.

In April 2022, the Villanova Wildcats walked off the court at the New Orleans Superdome as Final Four losers. No Big 5* team has been back in the tournament since. Drexel was there in 2021, if you can count it, given the COVID-abbreviated 20-game season. Before that: Temple in 2019 and Penn in 2018, both one and done.

The last team besides Villanova to win an NCAA Tournament game was St. Joseph’s. In 2016, Phil Martelli Sr.’s eighth-seeded Hawks beat ninth-seeded Illinois before losing a squeaker to top-seeded Oregon. Nine years later, Oregon is in the Big Ten, Martelli is retired, and his son will be coaching 15th-seeded Bryant against Michigan State on Friday.

The local diehards would love to believe that we are in the midst of a blip. A historical anomaly. They want to believe that famines prelude feasts. The rest of us would be much happier if we could have whatever they are drinking. In the New World Order of college sports, tradition becomes a victim of scale.

That’s what we saw on Sunday night. A gargantuan next step in the dramatic reconfiguration of college hoops. It is like everything in America. Money has its own velocity. It has always spoken the loudest in the Southeastern Conference. In the NIL era, it is now legal for it to shout at the top of its lungs. The result on Sunday was a record-shattering 14 SEC teams earning entrance to an event that the majority of its members once regarded with a shrug.

— Auburn, No. 1 seed

— Florida, No. 1 seed

— Tennessee, No. 2 seed

— Alabama, No. 2 seed

— Kentucky, No. 3 seed

— Texas A&M, No. 4 seed

— Ole Miss, No. 6

— Missouri, No. 6

— Mississippi State, No. 8 seed

— Georgia, No. 9 seed

— Oklahoma, No. 9 seed

— Arkansas, No. 10

— Vanderbilt, No. 10 seed

— Texas, No. 11 seed

Three times as many Big 5* teams failed to make the tournament as SEC teams did.

We must root hard against them. That’s the only choice.

We may not have La Salle, or Drexel, or St. Joe’s, or Penn. Not even Temple or Villanova.

But we do have the schools that can help us believe in a better future.

Root hard for another plucky 13th-seeded Yale team over Texas A&M.

Root for 11th-seeded Drake over Missouri.

Root for Xavier over Texas in the 11th-seed play-in game.

Seventh seed Kansas versus Arkansas? There are no winners there. But we can root for San Diego State over North Carolina, and then the Aztecs over Ole Miss.

Don’t bother rooting for Norfolk State or the winner of Alabama State against St. Francis. But where Auburn and Florida will triumph, we can at least hope Alabama falters against 15th-seeded Robert Morris. Same goes for Mississippi State (against ninth-seeded Baylor).

St. Mary’s and UConn are both seeded higher than Oklahoma and Vanderbilt.

These are the list of teams that should be on our must-watch lists.

There is currently being waged a battle for the soul of college hoops. Teams like Temple, La Salle, Drexel and St. Joe’s are already on the outside. For Villanova to have a chance, it needs the big state football schools to falter. They cannot match the funds of student classes boasting 30,000 strong. However well-heeled their boosters, they cannot compete with scale.

It is unfortunate that college basketball has turned into this. Economic warfare. But that is where we are. Root against the SEC. The only hope is they give up on basketball.

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