This year there have been some big upsets in 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 a 9 seed knocks off an 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 a bracket with the higher seeded team winning each game. If your bracket matches the reference bracket and they win, then you get points. 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 the fourth round: How upsetting is this tournament?

The UF for the fourth round was o and the BP was 8. There was not much change in the overall UF and BP since only one top seed was in the round and there were no upsets.

The BP through the fourth round this year is very low.  There is only one year with a lower BP after the first four rounds. You can see that 2011 will remain the year with the lowest BP as no 1 seeds won in the Final 4.

If Kansas wins out then the BP would increase to 110. However, if they lose in the next round it will stay at the 2nd lowest of all time.

Update: I made a mistake with the numbers for the 4th round. Here are the updated numbers. They also include the final numbers.

The BP through the fourth round this year is very low.  There have been three years with a lower BP after the first four rounds. You can see that 2011 will remain the year with the lowest BP as no 1 seeds won in the Final 4.

If Kansas wins out then the BP would increase to 110. However, if they lose in the next round it will stay at the 2nd lowest of all time.  As you can see, this is what happened.

The UF is tied for second highest through the fourth round as some of the upsets have been big ones. However, there are not enough UF left in the last two rounds to pass the total from last year. The only question is whether this year will stay tied for second in UF or take the spot alone.

Update: I made a mistake with the numbers for the 4th round. Here are the updated numbers. They also include the final numbers.

The UF is the second highest through the fourth round as some of the upsets have been big ones. However, there are not enough UF left in the last two rounds to pass the total from last year.  In 2014 the total increased to 111 in the final round, The only question is whether this year will stay tied for second in UF or take the second spot alone.

Another stat I keep track of is the number of double digit seeds that advance to each round. The fourth round started with two double digit seeds, but both of them lost. The lowest seed in the Final 4 is an 8 seed.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the tournament turns out. Will this year remain near the bottom in BP? Will there be an upset to give 2022 sole possession of 2nd place in UF?

The records are 2011 with a BP of only 57 and 2021 with a UF of 128.

In any case, it has been a fun tournament to follow this year.

Steven