Grambling State picked up a big win for not only itself but also the entire Southwestern Athletic Conference this week.
The No. 16-seeded Tigers rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to force overtime Wednesday, eventually defeating fellow 16-seed Montana State 88-81 in the First Four round of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament in Dayton, Ohio.
This win means Grambling, playing in the NCAA tournament for the first time, will face No. 1-seed Purdue at 6:25 p.m. CDT today in Indianapolis on TBS.
It also means an extra NCAA tournament unit for the SWAC.
The NCAA tournament, also known as "March Madness," represents a massive payday for the NCAA each year due to its lucrative television contracts. Much of that money is distributed to each of the 32 Division I basketball-playing conferences. How much each conference receives is performance-based.
Each league gets one "unit" for each team in the tournament. Eight teams from the Southeastern Conference were selected for the tournament, guaranteeing the SEC eight units. The American Athletic Conference received two bids, guaranteeing two units.
A one-bid league such as the SWAC is guaranteed only one unit. However, additional units are paid out for each game a conference's teams participate in, not including the championship game.
This means Grambling's win against Montana State earned the SWAC an additional unit, since it means the Tigers will play another game.
Revenue is distributed each April based on units earned over the prior six years. Pete Thamel of ESPN reported this year's payments are worth $341,802, but the exact figure changes each year. The total value of a unit over its six-year lifespan has been widely reported to be in the vicinity of $2 million.
Conferences are encouraged, though not required, to distribute those funds equally among their members.
The Commercial reached out to the SWAC for clarification on its unit distribution policy but had not received a response as of the publishing of this story.
If the SWAC distributes units equally to each of the 12 member schools, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff could receive roughly an extra $171,000 from the NCAA over the next six years, about $28,500 per year, because of Grambling's win.
Grambling could still earn the SWAC additional units if the Tigers keep winning, but that would require the Tigers to defeat the top-seeded Boilermakers.
A 16-seed defeating a 1-seed has happened only twice in the history of the men's tournament. The first time was when the University of Maryland, Baltimore County defeated Virginia 74-54 in 2018.
The second? It happened last year, when Fairleigh Dickinson defeated top-seeded Purdue 63-58 two days after winning a First Four game. Incidentally, that First Four victory came against last year's SWAC champion, Texas Southern.
Purdue is favored by 26.5 points, according to ESPN BET, meaning a Grambling win would be the biggest point spread upset in tournament history. FDU's victory against the Boilermakers last year currently holds the record as Purdue entered the game as a 23.5-point favorite.
A Grambling win would mark the deepest run by a SWAC team since Southern reached the second round in 1993. The 13-seed Jaguars defeated 4-seed Georgia Tech 93-78 in the first round before falling 90-80 to 12-seed George Washington in the second.