Round One By The Numbers
I graduated from Rose-Hulman in 1993 with a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics. I use that as an excuse for my compulsion to analyze each year’s tournament in light of historical statistical trends. Since upsets are so pivotal in our contest, I am most interested in statistics relating to those.
So, did we have “a lot” of first round upsets this year? Going by our contest’s strict definition of an upset being any game where the lower seed wins, the average number of upsets in the first round since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1984 is exactly 8. This year there were 7 upsets. Thus, this year was about average in terms of the number of first round upsets. Interestingly, it turns out that the average number of first round upsets picked per entry in our contest was 8.2.
Incidentally, you might be tempted to think that with only seven upsets you would have been better off just picking all the favorites to win. One contestant, Caleb Davis, did exactly that. He is currently tied for 427th!
Here are some interesting observations about the make-up of this year’s upsets:
- The underdog winners included one 9, one 10, three 11’s, one 12, and one 13.
- The upsets were not evenly distributed among the tournaments four regions. The West had no upsets at all. The East and Southeast each had one. The remaining five upsets all happened in the Southwest region. Put another way, that means only three favorites won in the Southwest region: Kansas, Purdue, and Notre Dame.
- Three 6’s lost. Not only did they lose. They lost badly. Should we expect anything different from 6-6-6?
- Xavier – I guess X doesn’t mark the spot.
- Georgetown – Had I realized they had not won a game in over a month, I would have picked differently.
- St. John’s – The experts said they didn’t match up well with Gonzaga. The experts were right.
- Historically, 14 seeds win about one game in seven. We had no 14 seed winners this year, and it turns out this was expected. Last year, 14 seed Ohio defeated Georgetown in the first round. The best showing of a 14 seed this year was Wofford’s 8 point loss to BYU.
Scategoria
Speaking of upsets, this year’s contest has yielded some interesting opportunities for Scategories Bonuses in the second round. While nothing is impossible, I do not see the 1 seeds being vulnerable in the second round this year, and so I do not see much chance of Scategories bonuses being awarded for Illinois, Michigan, or George Mason. For those who picked Morehead St to win a second time, however, the odds are very favorable because they play #12 Richmond. The truly compelling and potentially lucrative Scategories bonus is VCU vs. Purdue. Should VCU win that game, a few bold contestants would score 14 points for that one game.
Grab Bag
And now for a few totally random bits of minutiae.
- All of the Tigers have been eliminated from this year’s field: Princeton, Memphis, Missouri, and Clemson.
- “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” I don’t know if he is any good, but UNLV freshman guard Karam Mashour comes from exactly that locale – Nazareth, Israel. Shalom.
- Did anyone catch Syracuse’s Rick Jackson smiling intentionally for the handheld camera under the basket as he was waiting to receive the ball for a free throw? Priceless.
- Another great quip from Len Elmore: “Xavier, the Musketeers, must be wondering when D’Artagnan is coming, ‘cuz it’s almost too late for them.”
- North Carolina and Long Island combined to score 189 points, the most of any game in the first round.
- Is it just me, or has this been the year of the blocked shot? Texas’ Tristan Thompson had 7 blocked shots in their win over Oakland. The tournament single-game record is 12 set by Shaq in 1992.
Round One Awards
And now without further ado, it is time for this year’s first round awards.
- The Looking On The Bright Side award goes to Sunchin “No longer at the bottom” Litherland, who has, indeed, climbed out of the cellar and into 384th place.
- The If Ignorance Is Bliss, Apathy Is Cathartic award goes to Angie “it’s a good thing I don’t care” Davis who is currently tied for 388th.
- The I Hate This Stupid Scoring System award goes to the aforementioned Caleb Davis, whose record is a respectable 25-7, but whose points are only good enough for a tie for 427th.
- The Please Give Me An Award award goes to my thirteen-year-old daughter, Andrea Little, who asked for one today. She’s my kid. It’s my contest. Deal with it.
- The You Asked For It, You Got It award, sponsored by Toyota, goes to Greg “Wants A Break For Once” Schweizer. I’m not sure what exactly Greg is looking for, but he is in 5th place with 53 points.
- The Time Well Spent award goes to Kasiah “Spent 5 minutes on this bracket” Hand, currently in 10th place.
- The Hey, That’s MY Line! award goes to Richard Schrimpf, who seems to have appropriated for himself my favorite refrain, “Winner! Winner!, Chicken Dinner!“
- The Lucky Seven award goes (ironically) to the six contestants who picked all seven upsets correctly: Matthew Hand, Kasiah Hand, Dave Barndt, Jane Gomez, Leon Sinoff, and Paul Smith.
- The Forget The Drawl, Respect The Picks award goes to Romona “Respect the Drawl, Y’all!” Wicht, currently in 41st place and only 12 points behind the leader.
- The Look Out Below! award goes to Isen Schafer who dropped from 78th to 346th.
- The Movin’ On Up award, sponsored by tonight’s episode of The Jefferson’s on TV Land, goes to Wayne Murray, who climbed out of the 387th place cellar to rise to 112th. There’s still a long way to go.
- The That’s My Girl award goes to my 8-year-old daughter Ashlyn Little, currently (and incredibly) in 20th place. Way to go, Ash-o!
- The first round Top Prognosticator award goes to Tará Wynn and Ben Hodson, who each picked an astonishing 29 out of 32 games correct over the first few days. Even more incredible, neither of these contestants is in first place. That award goes to…
- Leon “Middle Cyclone” Sinoff, with 22 wins and 57 points, is our Contest Leader after round one.
- And by the way, the What In The WORLD Were You Thinking? award also goes to “Big Ben” Hodson, who inexplicably picked Boston University to beat Kansas, a 16-over-1 that still has never happened in 108 tries. This is the same Ben who picked 29 out of 32 games correctly. Boston U? Really? Is that your alma matre or something?
And with that, the next round of games begins in about 9 hours. I had better rest-up! I hope all of you are enjoying the madness so far. Be sure to check your email tomorrow when I will be sharing this year’s installment of “Hot and Not”.
Zzzzzzz….