This past Thursday was the first day of the 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament, known widely as “March Madness.” The 64 teams that participate are grouped into 4 groups of 16 teams, each with teams ranked 1 to 16, with the 1 seed playing the 16 seed of its respective group in the first round of the Tournament, and so forth.
Many sports fans argue that this is the best time of year in sports: the basketball may not be up to par in quality with the Warriors and Spurs, but the tournament’s excitement, passion, and thrill cannot be matched by any other tournament (besides, perhaps, the soccer World Cup). Hence the name, “March Madness.” Fans ranging in engagement from casual to die-hard fill out brackets for the Tournament, picking winners for each game and the eventual champion.
Much of the madness, excitement, and thrill is precipitated by upsets – a lower seeded team beating a higher seeded team. In recent years—especially the last two years—upsets have become more common. This year for example, there were 13 upsets in the first 32 games played—the first round—that is 40%, and another 3 in the 16 second round of games played, for a total of 16 upsets in 48 games – a rate of 33%. Among the upsets were some of huge underdogs: Middle Tennessee State, a 15-seed, beat Michigan State, a 2-seed that 61.8% of brackets filled on ESPN.com had picked to make the Final Four, and 22.3% had picked to win it all; Stephen F. Austin State University, a 14-seed, beat West Virginia, a 3-seed; Hawaii, a 13-seed beat Cal, a 4 seed. Even Yale—yes, Yale—a 12-seed, making it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1962, won its first NCAA Tournament game ever, beating Baylor, a 5-seed. The upsets were so wild that after just one day of action—16 games—only.1% of brackets filled out on ESPN remained perfect: 14,525 out of 13 million.
Let's face it: with teams playing with extreme passion, underdogs embracing the underdog role, kids laying it all out there, hardly anyone can be sure when filling out their bracket. Winning your bracket pool will come down to nothing but luck—as all those that had picked Michigan State to win it all. A team coached by the legendary Tom Izzo, who had actually raved earlier in the season that this was the best team he has had.
Just sit back, grab some popcorn, prepare to yell at the TV, and enjoy the madness.
