For the last few years, covering the NCAA basketball tournaments in Massachusetts has fallen into a familiar pattern.
It goes something like this: Of the nine Massachusetts schools that have Division I basketball programs, just one team gets an invite on Selection Sunday. This year, it was Holy Cross’ women’s team. Last year, it was Harvard’s women’s squad. Before that it was the Crusaders’ women’s team in back to back years, and the UMass Minutewomen.
But in the state where basketball was invented, the men’s teams are struggling to even make it into the bracket. None have made it for six years straight. (Merrimack won its conference tournament in 2023, but was prevented from competing in the NCAA tournament due to restrictions around its transition to Division I.)
The last men’s team to play in the tournament was Northeastern in 2019. Boston University qualified for the Big Dance the next year, but the 2020 tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the pattern continues, the ’20s could be one of the worst decades in Massachusetts history based on appearances.
Massachusetts men’s teams were once upon a time a consistent presence in the Division I tournament. The standout performers, of course, were the UMass Minutemen: They made the tournament seven years straight in the ’90s.
But lately, this state known for higher education has a few problems. Massachusetts is dominated by smaller private schools; top homegrown players opt to play elsewhere; and the way their conferences are structured makes it difficult for Bay State teams to qualify.
“When you have a dog in the fight, it’s a more compelling fight to watch,” said Marty Dobrow, a professor at Springfield College, who wrote the book on UMass’s basketball program. “And it’s just harder because those dogs are on the periphery of the fight right now.”
So, how did Massachusetts become an afterthought in the biggest month for men’s college basketball?
The last dynasty
Going back to the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, there was at least some regularity among Massachusetts schools in the tournament. The Holy Cross Crusaders won it all in 1947 — the single NCAA championship on Massachusetts’ record since the tournament began.
But starting in the ’80s, when the modern format of a main 64-team bracket was adopted in 1985, there had been a fairly consistent presence by Massachusetts schools in the tournament.
And one team stood out above the rest.
The UMass Minutemen had fallen on hard times until future Hall of Fame coach Jon Calipari took over in 1988.
The Minutemen made every tournament from 1992 to 1998 — including the only modern-era run to the Final Four by a Massachusetts school.
“They pretty quickly rose from atrocious to mediocre to good to being the number-one ranked team in America,” Dobrow said. “And this was all before the era of UConn’s [men’s] ascent. So, UMass, I believe, was the first team from New England that became number-one ranked.”
The team’s Final Four run later was vacated when star player Marcus Camby was found to have accepted improper benefits. And Calipari left following that historic run. Still, that UMass team of the ’90s was the last time the state had a true college basketball superpower.
Modern obstacles
Part of the problem for schools in the commonwealth may be that Massachusetts’ best schools are usually smaller, elite, private institutions. The big public universities in states like Kansas or Kentucky have big athletic programs that often have the most prestige.
“Massachusetts — for better, for worse — is a state that is just flooded with a lot of very renowned private schools,” Dobrow said.
Another big issue is the conferences that Massachusetts schools play in.
Six Bay State programs have qualified — ever — for the men’s NCAA Division I tournament. Most of them play in conferences that only get one spot in the tournament (like the Patriot League or Ivy League), two in a good year. Which means they basically have to win their conference tournaments if they want to get into the Big Dance.
The only team that plays in a conference that normally sends multiple teams to the tournament each year (the Atlantic Coast Conference) is Boston College. But that’s also one of the most competitive conferences in the country, and BC hasn’t made the tournament since 2009 — four years after joining the conference.
But maybe the biggest problem for Massachusetts schools is that, at least recently, big name local recruits have mostly not played in Massachusetts.
AJ Dybantsa, who is from Brockton and will likely be a top five pick in the NBA Draft if he declares, just finished his season out in Utah at BYU. The late Terrence Clarke grew up in Boston and went to Kentucky. And Dallas Mavericks star Cooper Flagg, from Maine, played at Duke.
And with NIL money making the basketball arms race into an outright money-slinging contest, that makes getting some of those big names harder than ever before.
Missing out
While there used to be at least some success in even making it to the tournament, wins have been scarce. The last team to advance to the second round was Harvard in 2014. Holy Cross won a First Four game in 2016 and was knocked out in the first round.
The NCAA tournament is a marker for any basketball program. Succeeding means more eyeballs and the chance to play with the best in the country. Getting there is an accomplishment. Missing out usually means there’s more work to do.
For men’s programs across the commonwealth, that’s been a goal to strive for.
And when Massachusetts is left out, at least on the men’s side, that does take at least part of the mystique of March Madness in the state. Even if it has a team like the Celtics to feed its hoops cravings.
“But the sport was invented at a college. There’s something about the college game that continues to be really drawing,” Dobrow said. “And I think it would be great if we could find a way, at least occasionally, to bring back a team that could make a run.”
