How to best pick upsets, according to data

Good morning. Grab some coffee and start your day off watching Brian Scalabrine, aka the White Mamba, prove that pro athletes – even much-beloved retired benchwarming ones – are like what your one friend named Chad aspires to be…built different.

–Peter & Kyle

In this edition:

• 🏀 Ranking NHL owners, from best to worst
• ✈️ Big Ten travel = tough
• 🏒 How to best pick March Madness upsets, according to data

⏱️ On the clock: Today’s newsletter takes ~3.56 minutes to read (947 words).

🏀 NCAA Basketball

How to best pick upsets, according to data

Get ready for buzzer beaters, Cinderella stories, and Gus Johnson screaming through the TV – March Madness is officially back. Brackets for the angrily named biggest tournament in college basketball were revealed on Sunday.

On the men’s side: Auburn edged out Duke to capture the #1 overall seed. And from there, the SEC kept on winning. The conference, which has 16 total teams, secured 14 bids – an NCAA all-time record.

On the women’s side: Lauren Betts and UCLA snagged the #1 overall seed – a school first – over the top of defending-champ South Carolina. Snubs include Stanford, which failed to make the tournament for the first time since 1987.

Filling out a bracket 15 brackets?

A fun fact to help properly set expectations: The odds of filling out a perfect March Madness bracket are 1 in ~9.2 quintillion (it’s easier to win back-to-back Powerball lotteries). But if you know a little something about basketball, the odds improve to 1 in ~120 billion.

So you’re saying there’s a chance…Here’s what the data says about how to pick the most accurate bracket in a tournament where upsets happen more frequently than “Mr. Brightside” plays at weddings.

• The average number of annual upsets – defined as when the winning team in an NCAA tournament game was seeded at least five seeds worse than the losing team – is 8.5, with the overwhelming majority occurring in the first two rounds.
• The safest upset bets (quite an oxymoron) are #11 seeds over #6 seeds (win 39% of the time), followed by #12 seeds over #5 seeds (35%) and #13 seeds over #4 seeds (21%).
• Overall, however, higher seeds tend to advance further and hoist the trophy more often than not. 34 of 39 winners of the men’s NCAA Tournament going back to 1985 were 1, 2, or 3-seeds (25 were #1 seeds).

These rules of thumb hold true for the women’s bracket as well. Especially the last bullet – only one team seeded 14-16 has ever won a game in the tournament, period.

Looking ahead…The men’s tourney tips off with the First Four later today, while the women’s begins tomorrow.

📰 Catch Up Quick

Headlines

• Philadelphia 76ers F Paul George has been ruled out for at least the rest of the regular season after receiving injections in his left adductor muscle and left knee.
• The Tampa Bay Rays are formally backing out of plans to build a new stadium and surrounding mixed-use development in St. Petersburg, FL.
• McKenna Whitham, 14, became the youngest player to ever appear in a National Women's Soccer League match.
• A Tiger Woods biopic is in the works at Amazon MGM Studios.
• Rory "Phone Snatcher" McIlroy won the Players Championship (and its $4.5 million purse) following a playoff with J.J. Spaun.
• The Cincinnati Bengals extended their top two wideouts: Ja'Marr Chase (4 yrs, $161 million) and Tee Higgins (4 yrs, $115 million); Chase is now the highest-paid non-QB in the NFL.
• West Virginia's attorney general launched an investigation into the men's March Madness selection criteria; the move comes as West Virginia was left out of the tournament and North Carolina secured the final spot, in a choice many claim is questionable given UNC’s athletic director Bubba Cunningham was the chair of the committee and also received a bonus for the Tar Heels’ berth.

🔥🏀 In partnership with Extra Points

How 30k+ readers are seeing college sports in a whole new light

There isn’t much content that discusses the COLLEGE part of college sports. That’s where Extra Points comes in. Written by Matt Brown, a former contributor to SB Nation, the newsletter covers all the off-the-field stuff that shapes college sports.

Four days a week, you’ll get commentary, analysis, and original reporting on major issues like NIL legislation, realignment, college athletic budgets, and how the entire enterprise really operates.

It’s a unique and nuanced perspective loved by diehard college sports fans and industry pros alike.

📸 Pics from the Weekend

The MLB hosted exhibitions in Japan ahead of today’s season opener. Over the weekend, the LA Dodgers and Chicago Cubs both played exhibition games against the Hanshin Tigers (2-0 against the MLB teams) and Yomiuri Giants (0-2) of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The exhibitions were a preview for the MLB season opener between the Dodgers and Cubs, scheduled for early this morning in Tokyo (6:10 am ET).

+Tangential reading: The "Golden Age" of Japanese baseball is upon us.

The 2025 Formula 1 season kicked off in Australia. McLaren’s Lando Norris outlasted Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to win his first Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, in a race marked by heavy rain and a pair of late crashes. Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton finished 10th in his debut race for Ferrari, during which he seemed annoyed by constant radio messages from the pit team.

The Oregon men’s team is spending more time flying than hooping. Since their regular season began in November, Oregon’s men’s basketball team has traveled a combined 26,700 miles thanks to their new Big Ten schedule. That figure is more than the entire circumference of the Earth, and also the longest combined travel distance in college basketball’s 132-year history. Overall, 

👀 Top Plays

🏀 Nate Johnson sends Akron to the NCAA Tournament…

🏀 …while Marah Dykstra punches Montana State’s ticket to the Big Dance

🏒 The fastest goal in NHL OT history

⚾ Kansas belts five straight HRs to tie NCAA record

💥 Mikal Bridges game-winner earns 10th “Double Bang” ever

+Bonus: 7'9” Florida freshman Oliver Rioux cuts the net without a ladder

🔢 By the Numbers

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team say “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

• Steph Curry became the first NBA player to make 4,000 three-pointers in their career on Thursday; only one other player has even reached 3,000 (James Harden; 3,135).
• The PWHL's Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens played in front of 14,288 fans in Detroit Sunday night, setting a US attendance record for professional women's hockey.
• The Big Ten had 12 of its members selected to compete in Women’s March Madness, more than any other conference in history.
• Matt Richtman won the 40th annual Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, becoming the first American man to take the title in 31 years.
• A record-high 96% of the Philadelphia 76ers’ payroll was sidelined for Friday night’s game against the Pacers, totaling $165 million in annual salary.

🌐 Web Gems

Cool things to click

Explore: The Athletic’s newly unveiled NHL owner rankings, from Tampa Bay (best) to Buffalo (worst).

Here pitcher, pitcher: Do MLB hitters actually tip where they want pitches to be thrown? The answer seems to be yes.

Shoefight: On Running’s “Soft Wins” campaign is its latest shot at Nike.

The journey + destination: Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes won the longest-ever Iditarod sled dog race after 10 ½ days on the trail.

More bracket ammo: Full 2025 NCAA tournament probabilities, according to Ken Pomeroy.

🤔 Trivia

We’re going streaking!!

Stanford’s 36 consecutive years of making the women’s NCAA tournament came to an end this year. Only one other school has an active streak that’s longer. Can you name them?

Bonus: Name the school with the longest active streak of making the men’s NCAA tourney.

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🤔 Answer

Tennessee, which has appeared in every women’s NCAA tourney since its inception in 1982 (42 straight; there was no March Madness in 2020).

Bonus: Michigan State, whose streak dates back to 1998 (27 years), Tom Izzo’s third season as head coach. But it’s also a bit of a trick question: Kansas has an on-court streak of 35 – 1990 to present – but its 2018 appearance was later vacated by the IARP.