Don't Be Too Upset!

[Scott Turner]

Doing well in a tournament picking contest probably comes down to picking the right upsets.  Anyone can pick the higher seeds to win.

Define an upset as a lower seed beating a higher seed, and ignore upsets where there's only 1 step differential (i.e., a #9 beating a #8).  If my math from last year is correct, the upset rate in the tournament is around 22%.  Half those upsets happen in the first round, about 7.

Some recent thoughts about upsets:

http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/predicting-ncaa-tournament-upsets-the-importance-of-turnovers-and-rebounding/
http://courtsideanalyst.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/two-potential-ncaa-upset-picks-with-supporting-math/
http://www.teamrankings.com/blog/ncaa-basketball/why-you-should-ignore-the-seeds-when-filling-out-your-2012-ncaa-brackets

I leave it to Danny / Lee to turn this into a blog posting :-)

-- Scott