Many of you, I’m sure, do not have access to be an “Insider” on espn.com. That’s okay, because I’m here to help. ESPN.com ran an article yesterday that depicted the likelihood of having one of those insane tournaments this year where 14′s are beating 3′s and 1′s are falling by the wayside on the first Saturday and Sunday. Most of you are normal and only start obsessing about the minutiae the Monday after Selection Sunday. I’m here now, doing the dirty work for you ahead of time. Interesting stats about upset trends are after the jump.
Peter Tiernan appears to be ESPN’s “expert” on all matters Tournament, so here’s a quick breakdown of what he covers. (Here’s the actual article if you’ve got Insider) I agree with him on many points:
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Following the George Mason drama of 2006, 2007 was rare because it actually LACKED a lot of surprise and upset potential, leaving a lot of bracketeers feeling unfilled. Not me, I love chalk. (It makes the upsets that much sweeter.)
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In terms of sheer seeding and its numerical relation to upsets, 2007 was the tamest year since Carolina defeated Michigan in the infamous “Webber timeout” game.
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Tiernan also uses something bizarre called the “Mad-o-meter”, which details some nerdy way on how to break down how crazy a Tournament is, in terms of upsets. Anyway, the difference in “Mad-o-meter” terms was the greatest between any two years in 2006 and 2007.
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How “bad” was last year? Only three times did we see a team with four seed rankings lower or more upset. (VCU over Duke, Winthrop over Notre Dame in the first round; 7 seed UNLV downing Wisconsin in Round 2.) What made the upsets even worse was the fact that all three of them were highly expected, mildly diluting the upsets themselves. Everyone had VCU over Duke, Winthrop was the en vogue mid-major to put in your Sweet 16 and Wisconsin was on a downward spiral for the final three weeks of the season.
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Tiernan states that the average Tournament has 8.5 upsets per year. (Though that number is probably closer to six if you take out 9′s beating 8′s.) He thinks this year could rival 2002, which had the most upsets in a single Tournament—13.
Here’s the breakdown of Tournaments past:
I think our minds play tricks on us. We see the highlights of the VCUs, the Valpos and the and we think there are more upsets than there really are. (Uh, yeah, that.)
I’m definitely hoping for upsets, but not too many. I like a good 14-over-a-3 stunner out of NOWHERE (a la Bucknell over Kansas in ’05) and the occassional 1 seed falling in the second round much more than utter chaos by the time Sunday comes. Though, I guess that’s okay once every six-to-seven years, I suppose. But think about it: If we continually had all of these upsets (upwards of 10) every year, the March product would probably be less meaningful. The upsets mean more when they happen less frequently.
I will go on record as saying that we’ll have at least six upsets in The Tournament this year. That doesn’t count 9′s over 8′s or 10′s over 7′s, by the way.
