Has TMI Removed Some Magic From the Opening Weekend of March Madness?

We live in the era of ubiquitous information. The Internet and the devices we use to stay connected give us instant access to almost any piece of information that we desire at any time we desire it.

Number crunching algorithms and display/sorting tools take it a step further and actually give us sophisticated data, often available with a few clicks, upon which important decisions can be made.

Important decisions like, you know, your NCAA Tournament bracket picks.

But over the past 24 hours I have started wonder if a plague of too much information is eroding some of the special brand of expected magic that makes the opening weekend of March Madness the most scintillating weekend in sports.

First, in case you needed it (which you probably don’t), let’s quickly relive a few of the most magical first round upsets in NCAA Tournament history. (List courtesy of Time.com.)

1. (13) Princeton 43, (4) UCLA 41, 1996

2. (15) Richmond 73, (2) Syracuse 69, 1991

No video available, but read about it here.

3. (15) Hampton 58, (2) Iowa State 57, 2001

4. (14) Cleveland State 83, (3) Indiana 79, 1986

No video available. but read about it here.

5. (13) Valparaiso 70, (4) Mississippi 69, 1998

6. (15) Santa Clara 64, (2) Arizona 61, 1993

No video available, but read about it here.

7. (14) Northwestern State 64, (3) Iowa 63, 2006

8. (13) Vermont 60, (4) Syracuse 57, 2005

9. (14) Bucknell 64, (3) Kansas 63, 2005

10. (14) Austin Peay 68, (3) Illinois 67, 1987

No video available, but read about it here.

I don’t doubt that each and every one of us who watched one or all of the games above were enthralled by the result. But let me ask you: would it have been as exciting if you saw the upset as a possibility beforehand or even expected it?

Let me state right now that this is not a fully formed hypothesis. It is more of a random thought that hit me while reading an article from the Wall Street Journal entitled “Mastering the Art of Upsetology“. (And because I have the admin password to a sports blog, my random thoughts often find their way here; all the better because then I can solicit feedback from you.)

If you’ve read my bracket predictions post, you know that rather than make my picks based on gut, intuition, and the “eye test”, for the second straight year I used specific statistical criteria to assess one team against another and choose a winner. I do this throughout the entire bracket until I have a champion, only bringing judgment into the mix to break a tie.

Surprisingly, it did not take too long to compile all of the data I used in making my picks. A few Google searches and a couple hours of patience later and I had everything I needed in a spreadsheet, ready then to go game-by-game and see what my picks would be.

My system produced pretty good success last year. I tweaked it a bit and am expecting/hoping for even greater accuracy this year.

But as I was hitting the “duplicate bracket” button over and over last night while getting things situated for the bracket challenges I am in on Yahoo! (because I’ve now become strictly a one bracket guy), I started to get nostalgic for the days when making my bracket predictions was a more whimsical, heartfelt experience.

I always used to have one bracket that had Indiana winning the National Title, no matter how good/bad they were that season. I also used to have another bracket every season that had the Big Ten teams (other than Purdue) going as far as possible. And then I’d have another bracket with my actual picks, which usually involved Indiana going much further than they deserved to be picked…but it was so hard to pick against them.

Now, assuming the Hoosiers ever make the tournament again, I’ll presumably be axing them as soon as their stats don’t match up to their opponent’s.

I know what you’re all thinking: there is an easy fix to this. Do the stat-based bracket and then do a couple of others for fun; and you’d be right. It’s the perfect compromise and probably is what I’ll have to do once Tom Crean has the Hoosiers back playing in March again.

This isn’t really the core issue though.

I enjoy comparing stats and trying to predict the outcomes of games between teams I know, and I have at least peripheral knowledge of all the teams seeded 1-4. Typically, these are the teams that comprise the majority of the Sweet 16.

By the time the Sweet 16 gets here, however, at least for me, the most exciting part of the tournament will be over.

I love the first weekend of the tournament and I have always loved it for one very specific reason: every two hours between 2:00 and midnight for four straight days there is the possibility of a David coming out of nowhere to shock the world and slay Goliath. And when a game between a high seed and a low seed is close in the second half it becomes captivating television, much of it due to the “Who are these guys?” nature of the underdog.

At least, it used to be that way.

Now, we have “Giant Killer” analysis and “Upsetology” and ESPN’s Bracket Predictor – hell, I even wrote a column about NCAA Tournament upset picks – and myriad other tools that lift back the veil on all of the potential Cinderella teams before the Big Dance even starts.

After analyzing their stats myself and perusing articles on ESPN, I am now expecting Old Dominion, a #11 seed, to knock off the #6 seed Notre Dame. Similarly, it won’t really seem like an upset to me if #12 Utah State beats #5 Texas A&M. My statistical analysis suggested such a result, as did the “Upsetology” article in the Wall Street Journal.

While I certainly will enjoy the satisfaction of being right if one or both of these results ultimately proves true, I have sacrificed the joy of being surprised and compelled by their potential underdog stories. To me, these have become even matchups that, whichever way the game ends up going, will receive a relatively ho-hum response from me.

I’m still in the process of assessing exactly how I feel about this. To be honest, I’m not totally sure. I loved researching the teams, finding my upset picks, and then reading other analysts after the fact backing my thinking and methodology up. This makes sense. I’m a prideful guy and I take my blogging and prognosticating seriously.

Yet, I’m also a college basketball purist, a junkie, a lifelong devotee; and what hooked me from the beginning was the belief that emotion and momentum and Xs & Os and mental toughness – and so many other intangible factors that can’t be turned into stats and analyzed – were such an important part of winning. And they still are…but somehow taking a scientific approach to my bracket makes me feel like I have already uncovered stones that should not be uncovered until they uncover themselves on Thursday and Friday, and possibly even into Saturday and Sunday.

The first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is my favorite sports weekend of the year and no other weekend is even close. And even with everything I just said, that remains exceedingly true this year. Still, I can’t help but acknowledge this nagging feeling that something isn’t right. I already know I will be disappointed if Old Dominion or Utah State or a handful of other predicted “Giant Killers” don’t win on Thursday and Friday, and it isn’t just because I want to see an upset, it’s because I expect them to win.

March Madness, though, is supposed to be about the unexpected, not the expected. Now I can’t help but wonder if there was unappreciated bliss in the ignorance I used to have of the underdogs.

Of course, this all just means one thing: it’s time for a #16 seed to become the greatest “Giant Killer” of all and knock off a #1 seed.

Sure, it would ruin my bracket (which predicted all #1 seeds to reach Indianapolis), but it would be the one event that could rekindle the wonderful, unexpected feeling of shock and awe I used to get from occurrences like a #13 beating a #4 or a #12 beating a #5, which have now become more mundane. It’s a trade I’d be happy be to make because it would put the magic back into March Madness.

While analysis, numbers, stats, theory, algorithms, and all of that other stuff can certainly help you make better predictions, it can’t help you experience any magic. And nothing makes for a more memorable opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament than a little unexpected magic.

Do you feel like knowing too much about the lower seeded teams makes it less special when they do pull off an upset?

Has anything about the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend become less magical for you as more and more pre-Tournament analysis and information has become available?

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* – “We’re No Cinderella” photo credit: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images via Bleacher Report

* – Princeton player celebrating photo credit: MMBolding.com

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