How upsetting was the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament the year?

In a post last year, Most Upsetting Tournament?, I wrote about two stats that I keep during the tournament each year.

UF (Upset Factor) is a number that is a sum off the seed differences when a lower seed knocks of 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.

Disclaimer: The First Four is ignored as all four games are against teams of equal seeding. There are no upsets in the First Four games. The traditional first round is now sometimes referred to as the second round. It is the first round to me.

In arenas around the country the tournament has begun and we have seen some high profile upsets already.

Are there more upsets than last year? In the first full round it is easy to just look at BP to see if there were more upsets. In the first round there are a possible 32 BP. Last year the BP was only 22 after the first round. This year the BP is 24. That means that there were two less upsets this year.

Now for how big the upsets were. Last year there were 10 upsets in the first round for a total UF of 64 (avg. 6.4). This year there were 8 upsets with a total UF of 46 (avg. 5.75).

The upsets last year were a bit larger on average.

There are seven double-digit seeds that made it through to the second round. The most double-digit seeds to make it to the second round is nine which happened twice in 2001 and 2012. Last year there were eight that made it to the second round.

I did not fill out a bracket this year, but if I had I would not be in very good shape. Several of my favorite teams are already out of the tournament.

For those of you who are wondering if anyone will win the one billion dollars for the perfect bracket, it has been announced that the last bracket has been busted.

With the teams that are left, here is who I would like to see in the Final Four:

Kansas

Creighton

Wichita State

Iowa State

I would like to see Iowa State finish out a great season. So far it is one of their best since the 1950’s when Gary Thompson was their star player.

It will be interesting to see how this year compares to last year at the end of the tournament. Last year tied with 1986 as the most upsetting tournament with a total UF of 105.

A bit nerdy post, but this is where my mind wandered tonight 🙂

Steven

See also:

March Madness

Missing March Madness

Mad as a Hatter?