Part of my advanced methodology for picking my bracket came down to studying the chalk. The evidence was clear. Looking at the Sweet Sixteen over the last 3 years, the number of upsets has been 6, 6, 7, 7, and 8. (Upsets being defined as any team not seeded 1-4, so yes a 5 over a 4 would be an upset for this discussion.)
Clearly the range for upsets is 6-8, with 7 being a likely target. But if you don't pick at least 6, you are relying too much on chalk, and ignoring history. Especially after last year's GM run where an 11 seed made it to the final four, it seemed that upsets were getting more and more probable.
So of course I picked 5 upsets. I wanted to pick 6, but couldn't find a sixth team.
For a chalk comparison, Mark picked 1 upset (Tennessee), Kirat and Niraj both picked 3, and Matt picked 4.
And as it turns out there were 5:
5 Butler
7 UNLV
5 USC
6 Vanderbilt
5 Tennessee
Too bad they weren't the 5 that I picked (I did get 2 of them right. Which means that there were 3 upsets that I thought would be that I got wrong, plus the 3 that I didn't expect.) So I got 6 wrong, and in a normal year, if you don't pick any upsets, you're likely to get the 6 upsets wrong anyways.
(Also, only once in the last 5 years had a region gone perfectly 1-4, and it happened again this year in the West).
I made my picks in record time this year. I did one draft on ESPN, pressed "submit", and never looked back. So far I'm perfect in San Antonio and almost perfect in San Jose (stupid Illini that can't close). In St. Louis and East Rutherford I lost an Elite Eight team and another in the Sweet 16.
ReplyDeleteSome key games, including possible games: UNC-Georgetown, Texas A & M-Ohio State, Kansas-UCLA. And really all of them. With so many of us having so many teams alive, we all need our picks to keep winning. But those three potential Elite 8 games will separate us in the tournament challenge