In honor of the field of 64, which just got announced, here's a fun stat sheet courtesy of CBS Sportsline, showing some key historical stats of the tournament. One thing that was interesting to me was the 5 seed vs 12 seed matchup that everybody always harps about. Marc was arguing the other day that really, its is not more likely to occur then an 11 beating a 6. Which happens to be exactly the truth - both the 11 seed and the 12 seed have the exact same winning percentage in the first round. However, you will notice that the winning percentage of the seed steadily rises as the seed rises, except between the 11 and 12 seeds, which have the same exact winning percentage. Furthermore, the delta between the 13 seed and the 12 seed is 11, whereas the delta between the 14 seed and 13 seed is 3, and the delta between the 11 seed and the 10 seed is 6 wins. By all accounts, the 12 seed should probably be about 4 or 5 wins worse then they are. So, what does this mean? Well, it means that the legends are trun, and that the 12 seed is the lowest seed that has been averaging more then 1 win per year for the last 23 years, so its the biggest upset that you can reliably choose for your bracket (of course, the trick is picking the right one). It also means that you shouldn't be as generous with your 11 seeds either - you should really only have one 11 seed advancing to the second round.


Its also interesting to look at the 8 / 9 matchup - the 9 seed is the favorite with what should basically be a 50/50 split. However, don't expect the 9 seed to go much further, they are a terrible 3 and 47 in the 2nd round (which happen to always be against the 1 seed, but still). 8 is a much better bet for a 1 in 3 chance of knocking off the big dog, but still not something I would take without good cause.


Finally, I'm intrigued by the records by seed - in 23 years, we have never gone 2 years in a row without a 13 seed winning (and last year no 13 seed won). Even more interesting, the 15 seed should win about every 7 years or so, and its been 6 years without a 15 seed win.


I love looking at the historical statistics of the game, because its so cold and calculating, not at all like the tournament is when it gets going. These numbers seem so insignificant when you are cheering for a 13 to beat a 3, but I'll bet when we go back and plug in the numbers from 2008, then they'll all make sense again, and we'll consider ourselves fools for not seeing that upset when the statistics told us we should. Thats why math rocks.