OK, time for some more March Madness!

Is the NCAA Tournament this year the most upsetting one yet?

Maybe it depends on who your favorite team is :-).

The tournament is now down to the Elite 8 and there is only one #1 seed (Louisville) left in the tournament. It does seem like it is a pretty upsetting tournament.

I always like to have an image in my post. I tried to think of one to post, and decided that this picture of the Stockton Arena would help illustrate the post :-).

Each year, I keep track of two numbers during the tournament. The first is UF or Upset Factor. The second one is BP or Bracket Points.

UF (Upset Factor) is a number that is a sum of the seed differences when a lower seed knocks off a team with a higher seeding. For instance, when a 15 seed knocks off a 2 seed the UF is incremented by 13. If an 9 seed knocks off a 8 seed then the UF goes up by 1. If a 10 seed beats a 15 seed, there are no UF points since the higher seed was the winner.

BP (Bracket Points) is probably familiar to most sports fans. When scoring your bracket you get 1 point for a first round win, 2 points for the second round and then 4, 8, 16 and 32 for the following rounds. Basically, you fill out the bracket with the higher seeded team winning each game. You then add up the points based on the tourney results. For the Final Four, the points are given when a #1 seed wins.

So, now for the big question: How upsetting is this tournament?

After the first three rounds the UF is currently at 96. If there are no more upsets this year it would tie for #6 for most upsetting tournament based on UF since the expansion of the tournament to 64 teams in 1985.

Here is a list of the most upsetting tournaments so far based on UF.

• 1986 – 105
• 1999 – 103
• 2006 – 101
• 2011 – 98
• 1990 – 97
• 2010 – 96
• 2013 – 96

Of course 2013 has a chance to move up the list and become the most upsetting tournament. There could potentially be another 25 UF points if lower seeded teams continue to win. However, if Wichita State loses in the next round there will not be enough available points for this to happen. A Wichita State win would bump the UF to 103 and it would take only one or two more small upsets for the tournament this year to become the most upsetting.

Now to Bracket Points. The BP currently sits at 60, so there is no chance that this year will have the lowest BP. That honor or dishonor would go to 2011 where the final BP was only 57. In 2011 there were no #1 seeds in the Final Four. This could happen again this year with an upset by Duke.

Will this be the most upsetting tournament? We will have a much better idea after the games tomorrow.

Steven