The Anatomy of an Upset

I'm still doing ok with my NCAA brackets after two days worth of games. My Final Four is intact and 14 of my Sweet Sixteen are still playing. I guess you can't ask for much more than that. Only I should have known better with one of them and thus I'm kicking myself. I knew that Wake Forest wasn't that good and yet I not only had them winning their first game I even had them winning the next. All the signs of a looming upset were there:

1. Over-rated high seed. Basketball coaches are always saying that being #1 in January doesn't do you any good. Turns out they know what they are talking about. Wake Forest played in the ACC, which had a down year, and got to #1 by beating Duke, which should not have been ranked that high, either.

2. Senior Leadership on the Underdog. Cleveland State has 3 seniors in their starting line-up while, of Wake Forest's 4 seniors, only one of them plays consistently. Seniors are key to winning during March madness for an underdog.

3. No One Picks the Upset. One of the major keys of a college upset is the element of surprise. You'll notice that in football USC never loses to good teams, it's the Stanfords and Oregon States of the world that shock them. That's because when people are constantly telling college kids that they could lose a game then those kids will be extra motivated to prove that they won't. Everyone was picking a 5 - 12 match up for an upset, everyone ignored the 13 - 4 game.

The other one I got wrong was West Virginia. That was the product of forgetting that Bob Huggins isn't that good of a coach. I forgot the high number of first round exits that his teams had while he was coaching at Cincinnati. So, really, I should have known better on both of my loses.

Just wish I had taken the time to write all this down before the tournament started.