No Littles need apply

 Connective tissue is everywhere if you know where to look for it. Call that your home truth for today.

The tie that binds in this case stretches all the way from Fort Wayne, In., to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen, and not because the local mid-major is playing in the latter. It's not. On the contrary, the local mid-major's best player entered the transfer portal yesterday, and he's a hometown guy to boot. 

"What's that got to do with Da Tournament, Mr. Blob?" you're undoubtedly saying now.

I'm getting to that.

See, in the same week Jalen Jackson from Northrop High School and Purdue-Fort Wayne of the Horizon League presumably lit out for presumably greener pastures, Da Tournament bid farewell to its mid-majors, too. There isn't a single MAC or Horizon or SoCon or Ivy school remaining. Everyone left standing is from one of the four high-dollar conferences.

The Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC and the Big 12. That's it. That's your Sweet Sixteen field. All the major food groups are represented, as Judd Nelson observed of Michael Anthony Hall's lunch in "The Breakfast Club." 

What this has to do with Jalen Jackson entering the transfer portal after averaging just shy of 20 points per game for PFW this season may not be immediately obvious, mainly because I have no idea what went into the young man's decision. What I do know is he's already getting inquiries from a pile of major-league schools, as talented backcourt players always do.

And should he land at one of those major-league schools?

Well, he'll be following exactly the trajectory of a lot of mid-major players before him. And it's the transfer portal and NIL that have smoothed their path. 

Now, this does not mean I'm ready to say the aforementioned have turned the Littles into little more than a farm system for the Bigs. That would be premature, because the trend isn't yet that formulaic. And the truth is, players leave programs for more reasons than wheat has chaff.

However.

However, the portal and NIL certainly have changed the dynamic between the Littles and the Bigs, and not in a good way. The priorities of each used to have at least some connective tissue of their own; now there is none. The Littles still for the most part see athletics as an integrated part of the larger institutional whole. The Bigs treat the institutional whole as a mere brand for the corporate interests of Athletics Inc.

Thus, the gap widens. Thus, we edge closer and closer to the day when the Littles will be nothing more than a farm system for the Bigs, with the portal and NIL providing the essential framework for that system.

In the meantime, welcome to a Sweet Sixteen in which no Littles need apply.

No Catamounts of Vermont, dammit. No Yale or Harvard or Princeton. No Florida Atlantic, no Florida Gulf Coast, no Creighton or George Mason or College of Charleston or even Gonzaga.

No glass slippers, Dancin' their Cinderella way into the second weekend.

Fairy Tales Are For Losers: Now there's a marketing slogan for you.

Not.