The first two rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament are over and so far it has been a less upsetting tournament than the last few years.

Each year I keep track of how upsetting the tournament is by using a few basic stats.

For an explanation of Bracket Points (BP) and Upset Factor (UF) see my post Most Upsetting Tournament?

  Here is a table showing how the Bracket Points add up. Points are only given if the expected team wins for each game. For the first round a 1-8 seed win gives 1 point. For the second round a 1-4 seed win gives 2 points and for the third round it takes a 1-2 seed win to get 4 points. From then on a 1 seed must win to garner any points.

Here is the analysis for the first two rounds of the tournament. So far there are 50 BP and 51 UF.

There are 50 BP after the first two rounds out of a possible 64. The UF is 51, which is much lower than last year.

There is also just one double digit seed left in the tournament so there is somewhat limited opportunity for the UF to rapidly increase.

The South region is the only one with the top four seeds left. The East region has lost both the 1 and 2 seeds so it will no longer accumulate BP.

This year is similar to the 2015 tournament, and definitely less upsetting than the tournament last year. It will be interesting to see how the numbers look after next weekend. There is a high potential for BP with the exception of the East region.

How does your bracket look?

Steven