Look no further than 11 seed NC State this year. But also...

9 seed Florida Atlantic in 2023. 8 seed UNC in 2022. 11 seed UCLA in 2022. 11 seed Loyola IL in 2019. 7 seed UCLA in 2017. 10 seed Syracuse in 2016. 7 seed Michigan St in 2015. 7 seed Uconn and 8 seed Kentucky in 2014, 9 seed Wichita St in 2013.

Aside from Wichita St and Loyola IL, ALL of these teams are major name, power conference schools.

By all accounts, NC State was not even slated to be in the tournament. They literally won their way in through the ACC tournament, beating top tournament teams, whilst being a 10 seed in the ACC tournament. I am a Syracuse fan myself, so I watch quite a bit of ACC ball, and what tends to happen is that nearly every single game in the ACC is a close game. One good defensive move, or one bucket made instead of not made, and the outcome is different, and thus the rankings are different, not because of quality of play, but because of a 1-point win or loss.

Syracuse beat NC State 2 out of 3 times, unfortunately losing where it counted, in the ACC tournament. But NC State made the final 4. So, this begs the question, if ACC 10 seed and tournament 11 seed NC State made the Final 4, should not every ACC team ranked 1-10 be in the tournament? And my argument is that not even this, but I believe every single team in the ACC is tournament quality, but sometimes the dice just didn't roll in their favor.

My theory is, put last place Louisville back in the Big East, and I would imagine Louisville could be right back in the top 25. But because they are in the ACC, every single game is now against a top 25 caliber team, even if they play against the next worst team.

My theory keeps being proven that the best teams aren't in the NCAA tournament, when consistently at least one of the best teams is a lower seed, but also a lower seed of a power conference and also a major name school. Not to say there's never been upsets before this--there has, but they key word being consistent. It didn't happen as consistent as it does now. The NCAA tournament is supposed to be home of the best basketball teams, but the problems is, the best of the best basketball teams are all in the power conferences alongside all the other best teams.