Lower seeds were doing well......

[DonLightfoot]

...... but I notice on Saturday only two of the eight games went that way. I can't remember specifically, has it been the norm for the first games to have a higher percentage of lower seeds winning than the second games?

 

[bballbeadle]

... but I notice on Saturday only two of the eight games went that way. I can't remember specifically, has it been the norm for the first games to have a higher percentage of lower seeds winning than the second games?

Yes, very few of the lower seeds make it into the Sweet 16. They shoot their wads being giant killers the first game. However, some do make it, and some analysts are betting against us.

 

[Shark58]

in 2 rounds the tourney will be pretty chalk, plus the SU/MTSU/Zags survivor

 

[Townie72]

In the First Round, Lower Seeds won 13 of 32 games (40%)

15 Seeds won 25% of the games vs. 2 Seeds
14 Seeds won 25% of the games vs. 3 Seeds
13 Seeds won 25% of the games vs. 4 Seeds
12 Seeds won 50% of the games vs. 5 Seeds
11 Seeds won 75% of the games vs. 6 Seeds
10 Seeds won 50% of the games vs. 7 Seeds

Seems like this year once you got below a 14 Seed playing a 3 Seed, Seeding had no impact on the outcome of the game. In fact. it was a slightly negative predictor.

This suggests a whole lot of parity in College basketball in 2015-16. Especially below the 4 Seeds.

 

[Townie72]

The above analysis leads to what would have been the right strategy for Brackets in 2016.

In the First Round

Always pick the #1 Seeds *unless the #1 Seed happens to be Georgetown in which case picking against them and having it work out would be such a delicious experience)

Pick 75% of the 2, 3 and 4 seeds. One of them is going to lose.

When you get to beyond the 4 Seeds, seeding doesn't matter. You can't use it as a guide. So you have to:
1. Depend on superior basketball knowledge gained by actually watching hundreds of games during the season
2. Depend on your prejudices by picking teams you hope will win or hope will lose.
3. Depend upon systematic biases like always picking ACC schools or always picking Southern schools.
4. Random selection, a variation my wife uses by picking school's she likes based upon whether she knows and likes people who went there or their mascots or their school colors. It's guaranteed that whoever wins the pools this year will have used one of these approaches since Townie's "ex post facto" process above was not available before the Tourney.