Here we go again on Sunday Surmising, but we are the fact bringers here: March Madness is officially dead to us. We actually haven’t filled out a bracket since 2019, in truth, as the patterns over the years made it clear that the event itself was selling out to the major conferences and the corrupt profiteering that have ruined college football. Well, time has come today to say goodbye to college basketball, too. And we weep for it.

As the 2025 version of the Sweet 16 came to finalization, it was all power conference schools this weekend—because the NCAA shafted a Top 10 team, sabermetrically, with a low seed to keep it that way. Yeah, the sport has been screwing over Gonzaga for years, but this was the final straw, and at what cost? We quote the Bible here, oddly: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?” Indeed.

March Madness has lost its soul.

The Gonzagas are what made the NCAA Tournament the best event in sports; now the sport wants to eliminate that element in favor of profit margins. With the 16 teams advanced all from power conferences, there is no “little guy” to root for in the regionals now. Think of all the double-digit teams that have made electric runs to the Final Four, and now say goodbye to that every happening again. The sport is ruined.

There will be no more Butlers reaching the title game; the last straw might have been when San Diego State did so a few years ago. Butler (2010, 2011) and Gonzaga (2017, 2021) each reached two championship games in the last 15 tournaments, and the Aztecs made it, giving the smaller conferences hope that they could do what smaller schools do in college baseball and college hockey: win it all. But the NCAA has shut the door.

Yeah, we know this is just one year, but we would be very surprised if anything changed in the future. Giving so many undeserved bids to SEC schools this year was just another sign, in addition to shafting Gonzaga and the resulting seed contrivance we now are seeing in the Sweet 16. Feel free to come back next spring and tell us we were wrong, but we saw this bullshit in college football right away, too. It’s game over.