When Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State converged on Madison Square Garden’s hardcourt on Tuesday night, men’s college basketball fans were treated to the first-, second-, seventh- and 13th-ranked teams in the country. The event was a potential Final Four preview, five months early. It was also a vivid reminder that the sport remains an oligarchy.

This was the sixth straight year these programs competed in the so-called Champions Classic, broadcast on ESPN, with the No. 2 Wildcats defeating the No. 13 Spartans, 69-48, followed by the No. 7 Jayhawks defeating the No. 1 Blue Devils, 77-75, in the final seconds.

A month from now, four other top programs with similar pedigrees — well, three plus Kentucky, since the Wildcats will appear in both — will meet in Las Vegas for another annual event, called the CBS Sports Classic. For three years now, it will have featured the same four programs: North Carolina, Ohio State, U.C.L.A. and Kentucky.

“These are the blue bloods of the sport,” said Dan Weinberg, CBS Sports’s executive vice president for programming, referring to the teams in his network’s event next month, although the statement was also true of Tuesday’s event. “They have won for a long, long time.”