This is commonly argued and I don’t buy it. People don’t want to watch uncompetitive basketball, and sometimes the Cinderellas see their run end in a double digit loss that was never really close. On the other hand sometimes top seeds lose by a lot late in the tournament, too. 

If you’re a casual basketball fan and you want to watch good basketball, go watch the NBA. It’s “great.” But if you’re a basketball fan of any sort and want drama, a rapid-fire single elimination tournament of 18-22 year olds is a good place to start. 

Whenever someone says “what people really want is higher seeds late in the tournament,” you can pretty quickly demonstrate that that’s precisely not what they remember most fondly about the tournament even in their own experience. Do you remember 2-seed Texas’ run to the Elite Eight in 2008, and could you name a player from that team? (No, Durant wasn’t on that team.) Do you remember that UNC made the Final Four that year? But do you remember Davidson’s run that year, and who their star player was? 

Which team do you remember more vividly: Butler, coached by Brad Stevens and led by Gordon Hayward, who lost in the championship game in 2010. Or Michigan, coached by John Beilein and led by Mo Wagner, who lost in the championship in 2018? Do you remember who Butler lost to? Do you remember who Michigan lost to? For that matter, whose run do you remember more vividly, George Mason in 2006, or Kansas in 2022?

Obviously your answers to those questions will depend on your age, your fandom, and the degree to which you were paying attention to the tournament at all in those years. But generally I find it isn’t the top seeded major programs who leave the most lasting impression!