The Florida Gators weren't the only team that concluded their season by cutting down nets and celebrating a championship. Three other college basketball fan bases also got to end their seasons with a win.
The college basketball postseason this year included three other tournaments other than the 68-team NCAA Tournament. In all, 127 teams got to compete in the postseason between the NCAA Tournament, NIT, CBI, and the new College Basketball Crown. That seems like a much less special honor.
Major programs like Nebraska better off rejecting postseason tournament invites
While the NCAA Tournament was dominated by major programs with a chalky Final Four that included all 1-seeds, the other postseason tournaments were overtaken by programs outside of the Power Four conferences.
Illinois State was champion of the CBI, and Chattanooga won the NIT. Both are mid-major programs.
The only Power Four champion, other than the actual champion of college basketball, was the Nebraska Cornhuskers out of the inaugural College Basketball Crown. The tournament was flooded with average Power Four teams left out of the NCAA Tournament.
The Cornhuskers, at 21-14 on the season, won the tournament title and with it $300,000, which today might buy one decent player.
While Nebraska and others were battling it out in games few fans watched, the college basketball transfer portal opened on March 24. Although the NCAA Tournament was going on during that time, which is certainly its own issue, teams that got bounced in the first two rounds were already home and ready to hit the recruiting trail.
Those college basketball programs started to assemble rosters to make a further run in the NCAA Tournament next year, with no aspirations of making the College Basketball Crown, NIT, or CBI. But those teams still alive in tournaments were still stuck in the past.
Nebraska, as the only major program to win one of those other tournaments, rebounded and has added four players from the transfer portal so far. However, the Cornhuskers' first commitment didn't come until Friday, two days before the College Basketball Crown ended and 11 days after the portal opened. That's a lot of talent missed while still dedicating time to an underperforming roster.
An immeasurable benefit to these postseason tournaments, especially for mid-major programs, would be branding and more eye balls on your program. However, the Crown's final between Nebraska and UCF had 822,000 viewers, the most of a non-NCAA Tournament game. The NCAA Tournament, though, averaged 10.2 million viewers.
There's no comparison between losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and winning all of a different postseason tournament. There's no branding advantage and only a recruiting disadvantage.
At this point, Power Four programs that miss out on the NCAA Tournament are better off rejecting any other invitation and moving on to the next season.