16-seeds only started making upsets in very recent history. This tournament has been chalky, but sometimes that happens with single-elimination tournaments and is supposed to happen as seeding should get more accurate with all the information at the committee's fingertips.It won’t still happen because a low or mid-major player that plays well as a FR/SO will be paid to go up to the high major level.
Also, you won’t see 13/14/15/16 seeds making upsets because they simply won’t have the paid talent to do it.
Before NIL, the playing field for all NCAA teams was theoretically fair. Each school could only pay scholarship. Now, it it’s not. If Illinois is paying 500,000 per starter, and Northern Iowa pays just their scholarship, I mean it’s as uneven as it’s ever been.
I think this looks at history with rose-colored glasses. Many teams were paying players under the table, with teams being held to different standards when caught. The same financial imbalance has always existed; instead of as much money directly going to players, it went to coaching staffs, facilities, travel accommodations, etc. Instead of using low/mid-majors as auditions for high-majors, players would just accept wasting their Fr/So years riding the bench at high-majors praying they get given a shot, and if they get recruited over, that's it for them.