I don't pay much attention to basketball, but for some reason I'm usually glued to the tourney - at least, when Dick Vitale isn't doing the broadcast. ;) Yesterday's results bore out an obeservation that I've made over years of filling out tourney brackets, only to watch my picks go spiralling down the tubes in the second rule.

Always go with the 12th seed, at least for one round.

I have seen more upsets come out of the 5 v. 12 matchups than any other pairing. Care to do a historical analysis, Fel?

It's been a fantastic tournament so far. Some great games and some fantastic upsets...Wichita State, Bradley, George Mason...all part of the Sweet Sixteen...and all four of the top seeds are still in it.

There's a common rule that there's always a 12/5 upset...I don't know why that particular pairing always seems to yeild one. One of the reasonings that I've heard is that in every bracket there's a 5 who's overseeded and is really more of a 7 to 9, and then there's a 12 who's underseeded and is truly a 7 to 9 also...so, in effect you have two evenly matched teams. The trick in being able to find the upset pairing is to be able to determine which teams fit this description.

In this years tourney there've been 2 12/5 uspets, Texas A&M over Syracuse and Montana over Nevada. Even rarer than a 12/5, there's been a 14/3 upset (Bradley over Kansas). I'm not sure how many of each kind of upset there have been in the history of the field of 64 (65), but I do know there've only been a couple of 15/2 upsets and there's never been a 16/1 upset. I'll try to check into that.

[edit]...Ok, I found some info... The NCAA tournament has expanded a number of times in the last 65 seasons. This is a breakdown of the history of the tournament format:

1939-1950: eight teams
1951-1952: 16 teams
1953-1974: 24 teams (sometimes 22-25 teams)
1975-1978: 32 teams
1979: 40 teams
1980-1982: 48 teams
1983: 52 teams (two play-in games before the tournament)
1984: 53 teams
1985-2000: 64 teams (in 1991 three play-in games before the tournament)
2001-Present: 65 teams (with a Play-In Game to determine whether the 64th or 65th team plays in the first round)
For a complete history of the tournament bracket design the NCAA has a description here [1]

Since the inception of the 64 team tournament in 1985 each seed # has played a total of 88 games. The #1 seed has beaten #16 all 88 times (100%). The #2 seed has beaten the #15 seed 84 times (95%). The #3 seed has beaten the #14 seed 74 times (84%). The #4 team has defeated #13 69 times (78%). The #5 seed has been victorious over the #12 seed 58 times (66%). The #7 team has won 52 times against #10 (59%). The #8 team has only beaten the #9 seed 39 times(44%).

...from Wikipedia... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Madness)

[ March 20, 2006, 18:18: Message edited by: Hacken Slash ]

OK, so the late games were amazing. (I'm no Duke fan, so the early win by LSU was nice.)

Any way, Texas wins on a buzzer beating 3 and my alma mater pulls out from a double digit deficit to score the last 11 points of the game and send Gonzaga and Adam Morrison with his cheesy moustache packing to Washington.

Go Bruins!

Ugly, ugly win for the Bruins, but any final four is a good final four. Next up, LSU.

Go, George Mason!

I'm a big UConn fan (went there). Boy did they choke. That said, if they had to lose, I'm glad it was to Cinderella.

Great story (Tony "Ballpuncher" Skinn excepted).

I'll be rooting for them this weekend.

Well, needless to say, my brackets a mess. The only team I picked that's still in it is UCLA.

I wonder if the George Mason story doesn't qualify as one of the greatest upsets in sports history. Consider the fact that many people felt they didn't belong in the field of 65 to begin with...and then they beat Michigan St., North Carolina, Wichita St. and UConn...three of those are the championship programs from 2000, 2004 and 2005.

I guess I can take some solace from there being two SEC schools in the final four.

Unless you happen to attend LSU, UCLA, Florida, or are a graduate of one of those schools, and you ARE NOT rooting for George Mason - you have no soul.

UCLA here, but I agree AFI. If my horse weren't in this race, I'd seriously be rooting for Mason.

So, all of those Mason fans need to root for UCLA, right??!!

Go Bruins.

Oh well, better luck next year. UCLA was clearly outplayed at every aspect of that game. As good as they looked against LSU is how bad they looked against Florida.

I'm bummin' for ya, dmc. The only way I would have been cheering for Florida is if they'd been playing Notre Dame.

I must say, for how good this tournament was throughout the vast majoirty of it, the last weekend was anticlimatic. Both of the final four games and the championship game were not even close. It was actually difficult to watch.

Yeah, if you didn't have a horse in the race, there was little fun in watching the games. Given the great OT games last week and the on-the-edge endings of so many of the games, the final three games were very anticlimactic.