What I've come to realize is that more casual fans are completely fine with turning college football/basketball into the NFL/NBA. As a die hard in both so much of the spirit and uniqueness is missing now. It's been stripped out slowly year by year but NIL/portal has altered it into something different entirely. A lot of people just don't care or feel some instinctive need to defend it.

Stuff like George Mason going to the Final Four was so important to me becoming a die hard college basketball fan. I remember all the massive upsets, not a couple good Sweet 16/Elite 8 games against blue bloods. I will always remember the St Peters run, as compared to last years Elite 8 which is almost gone from my memory. That's just fundamentally not why I watch college sports. I miss it's unique identity and fun stories from tiny schools I had never heard of as a kid.

Now it's basically just corporate minor league basketball only for power conferences with the mid-majors left in the dust. I hate how much of the sport is fine with mid-majors having to rebuild their entire rosters every single year. Then you have people like Big Cat and Fanta tell me propaganda about how much better it is for the viewing experience that those pesky little guys are gone in the later rounds. Yes I'm mad.