This essay was supposed to be an analysis of upsets in the NCAA tournament. I compiled data from the last 20 NCAA men’s tournaments. I figured with all the technological advances that occurred over that time – we’re talking ‘Windows ‘95 to Tinder’ advances – combined with the increased use of advanced stats in basketball, that lower seeds would have provided more upsets by being smarter. There are always Goliaths; I thought with the advances in stats and technology there would be more Davids. What I found out was:
- That is only partly true.
- The only trend is that there isn’t any trend.
- I shouldn’t try to write an essay based on heavy statistical research seeing as how I got a C in Intro to Stats during college.
When I had all my information on: the seeds of Final Four teams, first round upsets, sweet sixteen runs by lower seeds, etc. I didn’t see the trend I wanted. I thought maybe turning it into a graph would show me a trend I hadn’t noticed looking at the raw numbers… it didn’t.
I suppose that’s just the nature of a single elimination tournament. All the one seeds have made the Final Four only once over the past twenty years. And when I say “one seeds,” I mean a UCLA team with Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook. They would lose that national semifinal by nearly twenty points to a mid-major led by one Derrick Rose… just when you thought it wasn’t possible to feel worse about Rose. He was that good.
But this was back when these guys were just 18-19 years old. They hadn’t developed to the level they have in the NBA. I’ve heard people mention that Anthony Davis would be a senior this year if he stayed at Kentucky. Which is scary if you assume he would have developed at the same rate playing against the SEC for three years as opposed to the NBA’s western conference. The smart money says he wouldn’t be a top five NBA MVP candidate talent.
Is that why I didn’t find a trend in the past 20 years? The players aren’t developed enough? I touched on some of the possibilities – player age, the tournament, etc. How do these combine to create such a wonderful few weeks of entertainment? Is this lack of consistency what makes college basketball special? Why was I so far off with my assumption about there being an increase in upsets?
Maybe it’s the whole single-elimination tournament thing…
Okay this is definitely the main ingredient. If the tournament was a bunch of three game series, or structured with pool play and a double-elimination bracket we would all be reading stories about how Kentucky might be the greatest NCAA championship team of all time – we should still have this discussion because I mean, c’mon, they could have two players taken in the top five of the NBA draft and they went 38-1 buttheylostonegamenevermindtheyarejustanotherteam!
We see the way series effect professional sports. The NBA, MLB, and NHL don’t usually produce upset champions. Which is great if you believe the best team should be rewarded with the championship. It’s not so great if you are a fan of high-tension excitement. The NFL playoffs is a single-elimination tournament. They are significantly more exciting than the other pro leagues for this reason. Outside of game 7’s – which aren’t guaranteed – the excitement level just isn’t the same.
In a single-elimination tournament like the NFL playoffs or March Madness there are only game 7’s. The variance increases, leading to more upsets. A hot team can beat a better team if everything breaks the right way for one game.
I’m not breaking any news here. This is the biggest piece of the variance puzzle with the NCAA tournament. But what are the less obvious pieces?
Maybe it’s the whole less than 2% of the players will play in the NBA thing…
I remember being young and filling out brackets with my dad. My younger brother decided to fill one out too. He picked Florida to beat UCLA – or as he called them “YOUK-LA,” – Florida because we were born there, and UCLA because he liked the way their name sounded… He won. Old bitterness aside, when I was young I just figured the players who played in college went on to play in the pros. I knew a little about the NFL draft, it had seven rounds, so many players were drafted. I was unaware the NBA draft consisted of two short rounds.
When we are watching the tournament we listen to the commentators gush over the NBA skillsets of Towns and Okafor. But most of the players on the court, especially in the earlier rounds, are playing at the highest level they’ll ever reach. These are the biggest games they will ever play. They will likely never be on national TV again.
These are kids who have been playing basketball for their entire conscious lives. We get to watch their final games; their last moments playing a sport that strings together their six year old self learning how to dribble, the pre-teen beating imaginary buzzers in their driveway, the high schooler leading their team in scoring.
I played baseball from t-ball up through varsity in high school. I remember my last at bat, striking out against a kid who ended up pitching at in college. I remember that next spring as a freshman, walking by the baseball field, and how strange it felt to not be lacing up my spikes or smelling the leather as a I broke my glove back in for the season.
I can only imagine the feeling these athletes experience in those waning moments of their final game. I think about my experience as a high school baseball player and multiply that by how many people watch the NCAA tournament. We see that emotion at the end of each game. We see how much it means to them. It’s something you rarely get in the pros – and when it does happen it’s usually received in a very different and polarizing light, just ask Chris Bosh.
We only get this – on this scale – in college basketball. In football they have helmets on, there are more players. College baseball just doesn’t get the same coverage. Only in basketball, where five guys fly around the court, where chemistry matters most, only then do we see that emotion on full display. The emotion of playing a sport you love, with people you love, one final time.
Maybe it’s the whole these are just 18-22 year old kids thing…
When I was 19 years old I was a sophomore in college. That was four years ago, and that’s a long four years. I lived in a townhouse on campus with nine of my best friends. I’m not sure there is anything that can compare to that experience, being that age, and having that ‘freedom.’ We would trek off-campus in snowstorms with empty backpacks in hopes the deli across the street accepted our fake ID’s so we would have something to keep us warm in case the heat went out. When we broke the door the night before an ultimate tournament my best friend Dave and I had to climb out my bedroom window to catch the bus. When it was warm enough to enjoy the balcony at night my roommate Kevin and I shot bottle-rockets out of our hands, and I only burned my shirt a little bit.
Obviously I had a different experience than a varsity athlete at a D-1 school. I played club ultimate, where our coach was my buddy Robbie who graduated two years before I did. I didn’t have the same schedule as Jahlil Okafor, Frank Kaminsky, and all the countless other college athletes. I was that age recently, though.
I’m under no impression that at 23 I am able to provide a level of wisdom that would shatter the preconceived notions of college athletes across the country, but 18 to 23 is a big five years. I want you to think back to when you were 18/19 years old. If you are that age or in high school just keep doing that thing where you think you are immortal and believe nothing in life is really that hard, and make it look cool. Now you’re playing basketball for Duke or Kentucky and the whole world is watching and dissecting you. The way you play night-to-night, play-to-play, is connected to an abstract athletic stock-exchange that determines where you will get picked in the NBA draft…
Dealing with this dynamic is why Duke and Kentucky are successful. One of the most important things a college coach has to deal with is controlling this dynamic. Coach K, and Cal, are two of the best because they aren’t only good play-callers on the court, but because they understand the volatility of a 19 year old psyche.
If harnessed successfully the young psyche of an athlete can be very powerful. You get what happened Monday night with Tyus Jones and Grayson Allen. There are only two ways basketball players have halves like those two freshman did in the final twenty minutes of the national championship:
- They are one of the best players in the NBA and have practiced and played the game at the highest level for years.
- They are 18/19 years old and aren’t afraid of anything.
When Okafor and Winston headed to the bench with foul trouble Duke was down by nine points. Grayson Allen scored eight unanswered points. After the first two possessions there was no more mystery as to what was going to happen, but Wisconsin couldn’t stop him. I’m not sure anything could have. If you plucked him from Lucas Oil Stadium on Monday night like a civilian in Roller Coaster Tycoon and dropped him into the Indian jungle surrounded by tigers while he was screaming “Let’s go!” the tigers would’ve given him a 100 yard berth.
That type of fearlessness can’t be taught. If it could, everyone in the NBA would play like Russell Westbrook. When you’re 18/19 years old, in college, playing in the NCAA tournament, that’s when that fearlessness has the highest ceiling.
I feel foolish for thinking there could be an objective reason for upsets in the NCAA tournament. There have been changes in the sports world over the past twenty years, but some things haven’t changed. Intangibles still matter in sports, no matter how many advanced stats and algorithms get thought up there will still be those things that can’t be accounted for with numbers.
This is part of what makes the tournament such a spectacle. It’s those things you can’t pin down. The things that don’t show up on spreadsheets of data or line graphs of average seed of Final Four teams, that’s what separates this tournament from the rest of the sports world. The intangibles in the tournament are so volatile and interesting on a level that you rarely get with professional sports.
As I think back to my original hypothesis: there have been more upsets because teams can win by being smarter, using technology and advanced stats to level the playing field, I see the inherent flaw in my assumption. Wouldn’t the good teams also get smarter? It only matters if you are the only team doing things smarter. Maybe Brad Stevens was ahead of the curve with Butler. Once everyone catches up the status quo resets.
I read This Side of Paradise a few summers ago, and it shocked me how similar the college experience was in 1920 to my own in 2013. No matter what technology is utilized, or what advanced stats are applied, the NCAA tournament will always be played by college students. As we all know you’re only that age once, but March Madness is that age every year, that’s the status quo, and that’s special.
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