This year there has been a very upsetting start to the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.

But, how upsetting has it been compared to previous tournaments?

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.

Here is what a perfect bracket would look like.

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

The UF for the first round was 66, which looks pretty high.

But, it wasn’t the most upsetting first round as in 2016 there was a UF of 73. However, the second round was not as upsetting and the UF was only at 87 after the second round.

Moving on the second round, this year the UF was 39, but doesn’t reach the 45 from 1990 and 2000. there were also several other years where it was in the 40’s.

But, the combined UF for the first two rounds is 105 which beat the 94 from 1999.

Overall this year is the 2nd most upsetting tournament, and it will only take a few more upsets to get the 7 UF to set a new mark.

Will it also be the year with the least number of BP? I don’t have the table sorted by BP, but 2011 is the year with the least at 57. There are still plenty of BP left to pass this mark.

Unfortunately this year many of my favorite teams have been upset.

My only favorite left in Creighton and their chances of winning the next game are very low. However, this is the year of the upset. Perhaps they can beat Gonzaga.

Did your bracket get busted?

Steven