There are 350 Division I college basketball teams in 32 conferences. Each conference tournament champion earns a berth in the NCAA tournament, leaving 36 “at-large” spots. The committee will select those 36 teams, and they do their best to be as fair as possible. Unfortunately, the result in recent years is that few teams outside the power conferences (Big East, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Pac 12) have received those at-large bids.

In the past 20 tournaments, only five teams from outside the six power conferences have been 1-seeds (Gonzaga has done it three times, the others once each). Furthermore, in that same time span, there have been 320 teams seeded 1 through 4 (16 per year), and only 36 have been from outside those six conferences, so they get just one of every nine top-4 “protected” seeds (“protected” mostly means a geographic advantage). Gonzaga represents nearly a quarter of those outsiders, and teams that have left mid-major conferences for one of the six power conferences represent seven more. The conference realignment that took place between the mid-’00s and the early teens moved several heavyweight mid-major teams into the power conferences and contributed to this situation. Over the last five years, only three teams outside the power-six leagues not named “Gonzaga” have cracked the top four seed lines, all from the American.

In today’s bracket projections, teams outside the six power conferences will account for just six at-large bids out of 36. Six is on-par with the average over the last five years and more than last year’s total of five, but it’s down from an average of twelve between 2002 to 2013 despite the tournament moving from 65 to 68 teams! Also, last year the A-10 and the Ohio Valley tournaments both had surprise winners who weren’t going to qualify otherwise, so that five could’ve easily been only three. Furthermore, six may turn out to be an overestimate. Rhode Island, BYU, VCU, and Memphis are all on the bubble (10-seed or worse) today, so a weak finish could give the Committee an excuse to leave them out. St. Mary’s is a 9-seed right now, and Wichita State is somewhat safer as a 7-seed, but this group of six could easily be cut in half… or worse.

Those teams are consistent with another trend: outside of some unusual circumstances, most of those bids go to just four conferences: the American, the Bonnies’ Atlantic 10, the Mountain West, and the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga’s WCC). Most years, the other 22 conferences only get their tournament winner in, and those teams are almost always seeded between 12 and 16. UB (6) and Wofford (7) were exceptions last year, and occasionally one will get an 11 like Loyola-Chicago in 2018 and Belmont last year. Granted, many of those 12-seeds have pulled off thrilling upsets in the first round or even the second, but overall it’s tough sledding for the 13-16 seeds.

Meanwhile, the Big 10 projects to get as many as eleven at-large teams in the field. Granted, they are also poaching bids from the ACC (having a down year) and the Pac 12 (having a down decade), and some Big 10 teams on the bubble could slump and fall out. But bubble teams from the deep Big 10 will have strong profiles compared to those from other conferences. Even though the Committee doesn’t take conference affiliation into account when comparing teams, tougher conferences give teams more chances for noteworthy wins and a stronger overall profile. Because of this, it’s easy to see why several teams (including Butler, Louisville, Utah, Creighton, and others) fled the mid-majors for the power conferences over the last decade, but it left the mid-major conferences with fewer high-profile teams, fewer bids, and in a weaker position overall. Fewer mid-major teams getting at-large bids means a little less madness in March.