Alabama State’s heart-stopping NCAA Tournament First Four win will pay dividends not only for that HBCU — but also for the entire conference.
ASU picked up its first-ever NCAA Tournament win by beating Saint Francis 70-68 on Tuesday night. That win was worth $348,000.00 according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. The win was worth an additional $2.1 million over six years for the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
Each NCAA conference earns a distribution from the “Equal Conference Fund” for participating in the tournament and sending their conference champion, considered the conference’s “automatic qualifier.” The pool is between $50 million and $60 million.
The NCAA Tournament Men’s Basketball Performance Fund pays conferences a “unit,” about $2 million, for each additional team they send to the Big Dance. Teams continue to earn units for each time they survive and advance, all the way up to the national championship game.
The two HBCU Division I league’s — the MEAC and SWAC — are one-bid leagues. Only the league’s champion goes historically. That means one chance a year to get those funds, which are vital in an age of rapid change in the college basketball structure. The SWAC has earned these bids in four of the past five seasons, and a total of five times since the First Four became a thing. The MEAC has three of them, including the first two with former members North Carolina A&T and Hampton.
HBCU NCAA Tournament First Four wins
2025 — Alabama State beats Saint Francis
2024 — Grambling State beats Montana State
2022 — Texas Southern beats Texas A&M — Corpus Christi
2021 — Norfolk State beats Appalachian State/ Texas Southern defeats Mount Saint Mary’s
2018 — Texas Southern beats North Carolina Central
2015 — Hampton beats Manhattan
2013 — North Carolina A&T beats Liberty