A lot of it is pure hype

"Dayton has lost two games this year, and unless you’ve paid close attention, you don’t know how good Obi Toppin is. If Obi Toppin played at Duke, he’d be hyped like Zion. He’s not as good as Zion, but he’s not that far off. He’s very, very talented."

The above is a quote from ESPN's Jay Bilas, and it says tons. The light in college basketball shine brightest in certain places, and in other places things are pretty dark. The glamor programs and power conferences get the press. And Bilas just admitted that even at the level of Dayton, which is in the upper tier of basketball, players get ignored.

The press is like anyone else: they are going to take the easiest route, and that is to go where the glamor is and scoop a handful of it. But come NCAA time some smaller school will emerge as the darling of the tournament because they win a game or two, and all the press will be falling over themselves to learn about them. If they had been doing their jobs, they would already have known about them.