Let’s talk March Madness.
If you understand the terms “March Madness,” “The Big Dance,” “brackets,” “bracketology,” “No. 15 upsets No. 2,” “Sweet 16,” “Elite Eight,” “Final Four,” “Selection Sunday,” “first four in,” “first four out,” “automatic bid,” “bracket buster,” “buzzer beater” and “KPI,” you are a true NCAA basketball championship playoffs fan, or at least a casual fan who steps up once a year to take in the action and perhaps, fill out your own brackets.
Played in the middle of March, hence the copyrighted nickname “March Madness,” the NCAA Division 1 Men’s championship was first played in 1939. Eight teams made the tournament and Oregon took the first crown by beating Ohio State. The field grew to 16 teams in 1951, doubled to 32 teams in 1975 and became 64 schools in 1985. Since 2011, there have been 68 teams in the field, with “first-four” games added. Some 313 different schools have played in the tournament since its inception.
The first use of the term “March Madness” is credited to an Illinois high school official in 1939, but it took a reference in 1982 by broadcaster Brent Musberger to make it a “thing.” Years ago, the NIT (National Invitational Tournament) was as big or bigger, but is now relegated to non-invitees of the NCAA dance.
Where a team plays and where they get seeded are big things, and often, both assignments are controversial. Currently, of 363 eligible teams, 32 teams gain automatic entry through winning their conference's championship. The remaining teams rely on the selection committee to award them an at-large bid in the tournament. At one time, major schools often got in by virtue of their name, to fill out the brackets after conference winners, pre-tournament winners and top 20 schools were seeded. Today, the committee looks at KPI, or KPI Sports, an analytics site that ranks every team’s wins and losses on a scale of -1.0 (the worst possible loss) to +1.0 (the best possible win) to rank teams. The selectors also look at “quad wins” or a good win vs. “quad losses” or a bad loss, as well as at record, strength of schedule and other factors, to rank the field of teams from 1 to 68, including conference winners and conference tournament winners.
Brackets are the schedule of teams and who they face throughout the tournament. Bracketology is a term first used in 1996 by the Philadelphia Inquirer, for predicting the participants and outcomes of the games in a sports tournament, especially the NCAA college basketball tournament.
Who fills out brackets? More than 100 million brackets are filled out every year by fans, and while some are for fun, much of it is monetized. The NCAA says illegal wagers total more than $2.5 billion a year. The American Gaming Association puts legal and illegal gambling on the NCAA championship at $9 billion. Office workers seem to love the event, much to the chagrin of their bosses. Studies show that $16.3 billion in corporate losses due to unproductive workers have been estimated to occur during March Madness.
This year, by the end of the first day of the first round, two major upsets and two minor upsets put the estimate of “clean” brackets (brackets that predicted winners) at less than 0.2%. No. 13 seed Furman upset No. 4 Virginia and No. 15 Princeton upset No. 2 Arizona. No. 8 Maryland beat No. 9 West Virginia, but in this case, the public favored the No. 9 team. No. 10 Penn State upset No. 7 Texas A&M and No. 9 Auburn mildly upset No. 8 Iowa. That was enough to kill 99.8% of all brackets.
It got even better the next day, in nearby Columbus, when No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson upset No. 1 Purdue. No. 16s had been 1-150 against No. 1s in tournament history, but as Derek Jeter, from another sport (baseball) said, “That’s why they play the games.” On any given day, your team stands a chance to win. You gotta love the excitement … unless you are a Purdue fan.
The only other No. 16 to pull the upset was UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) taking down No. 1 Virginia in 2018. And just to make an extra point, FDU (Fairleigh Dickinson University) is the shortest team in the tournament. After the FDU win, and upsets by No. 11 Pittsburgh over No. 6 Iowa State and No. 9 Florida Atlantic over No. 8 Memphis, only 24 clean brackets were in play of more than 20 million entries on ESPN, and there were no clean brackets left on CBS and Yahoo bracket contests. Note: That means that at least 24 fans picked Furman, Princeton and Fairleigh Dickinson (among others) to win. Wow. They should also buy lottery tickets if they are that lucky or that intuitive. How about at your office, your sports bar or your family? Did you or anyone you know have all remaining 32 teams in play?
After No. 8 Arkansas dethroned defending champ No. 1 Kansas, and No. 15 Princeton kept on the upset train with an upset win over No. 7 Missouri in round two, all clean brackets were knocked out. Brackets busted.
The most common upset is No. 10 over No. 7, at a 40% upset rate; a No. 13 upsets No. 4 at 21.5% and 6% of the time, a No. 15 beats a No. 2. This year, we had all of those plus the No. 16 over No. 1 game. Pretty exciting if you are into underdogs.
A note: One No. 16 has beaten a No. 1 in the NCAA Women’s brackets. In 1998, Harvard upset Stanford, the only time in 120 matchups of No. 1 vs. No. 16. And in the 2023 Women’s tournament, by day two, two No. 12s upset two No. 5s, two 11s beat two 6s and two 10s took down two 7s. The NCAA reported that only seven perfect brackets remain. When No. 8 Ole Miss eliminated No. 1 Stanford, it busted the last perfect brackets.
Did your team make the field? Is it still alive? Are your brackets clean? Do you embrace the “any team can win” excitement? What do you think? Are you a March Madness fan? Do you do brackets? If so, what is your strategy? Let me know at mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com.
