Anatomy of a First Round Upset: Who Will Pull This Year's Shocker?

What makes the first round of the NCAA Tournament so great is a number of different components—the endless games, slacking off at work or school for those two days, or just saying screw it completely and taking those days off.

With that, the American public truly shows their gambling addition in the form of NCAA Tournament pools. And you want to find out where the upsets are going to happen.  

Since the NCAA expanded the tournament field to 64 teams in 1985, we have had 23 tournaments to take a look at, including 96 games per seed.

Here's a look at those upsets over the years.

No. 11 seeds have won 30 games (31.2 percent)

No. 12 seeds have won 31 games (32.3 percent)

No. 13 seeds have won 20 games (20.8 percent)

No. 14 seeds have won 15 games (15.6 percent)

No. 15 seeds have won 4 games (4.2 percent)

No. 16 seeds have won 0 games

With these numbers, we start to figure out quite a few things. First of all, you can see that 11 and 12 seeds are both very prone to pulling the first round upsets, winning almost one-third of the time. 13 and 14 seeds combine to win 35 games in the first round, more than an average of one win per season. And finally, going for broke trying to find the 15 and 16 seed upsets is a losing situation.  

On average, you should have two or three 11 or 12 seeds pulling a first round upset and one 13 or 14 seed in your bracket.  Now we need to find out how to identify these teams.

No. 11 and No. 12 Seeds

Since 1998, 32 No. 11 and No. 12 seeds have won their first round game. Only five teams from BCS conferences have pulled the upset (No. 12 Villanova in '08, No. 12 Texas A&M in '06, No. 12 Missouri in '02, No. 11 Kansas State in '08, and No. 11 Washington in '98). For this year's tournament, that knocks out Wisconsin and Arizona. We are left with all of the 11 seeds and two of the No. 12 seeds.

Take one of the number 12 seeds left, Northern Iowa and Western Kentucky. Western Kentucky was a Cinderella a season ago, moving on to the Sweet 16. There hasn't been a team be a double-digit seed making the Sweet 16 twice in a row in about a decade, when Gonzaga did it in 1999 and 2000. I'm taking the UNI Panthers to shock the nation, beating a so-called "hot" Purdue team in Portland.

That leaves us with the No. 11 seeds. We still have all four eligible since they will be coming from the non-power leagues: VCU, Temple, Dayton, and Utah State. Dayton is an at-large team, something that hasn't been kind to teams pulling the upset in the 6/11 matchup. I'm going with the Temple Owls (who beat Texas in 2001 as an 11 seed) and Utah State over a banged-up Marquette team to pull these first round upsets.

No. 13 and No. 14 seeds

Now it's time to find our one big upset in the bracket and perhaps your chance to separate yourself from the pack. Everybody takes a 12; it's common knowledge even for my mother. But this is what separates champions from the guys yelling, "Crap, I had them in my Final Four!" You don't want to be that guy.

The upsets over the years:

No. 13 Navy over No. 4 LSU

No. 14 Cleveland State over No. 3 Indiana
No. 14 Arkansas-Little Rock over No. 3 Notre Dame

No. 14 Austin Peay over No. 3 Illinois
No. 13 SW Missouri State over No. 4 Clemson
No. 13 Xavier over No. 4 Missouri

No. 14 Murray State over No. 3 NC State
No. 13 Richmond over No. 4 Indiana

1989

No. 14 Siena over No. 3 Stanford
No. 13 Middle Tennessee State over No. 4 Florida State

1990

No. 14 Northern Iowa over No. 3 Missouri

1991

No. 14 Xavier over No. 3 Nebraska
No. 13 Penn State over No. 4 UCLA

1992

No. 14 East Tennessee State over No. 3 Arizona
No. 13 SW Louisiana over No. 4 Oklahoma

1993

No. 15 Santa Clara over No. 2 Arizona
No. 13 Southern over No. 4 Georgia Tech

1995

No. 14 Old Dominion over No. 3 Villanova
No. 14 Weber State over No. 3 Michigan State
No. 13 Manhattan over No. 4 Oklahoma

1996

No. 13 Princeton over No. 4 UCLA

1997

No. 15 Coppin State over No. 2 South Carolina
No. 14 Tennessee-Chattanooga over No. 3 Georgia

1998

No. 14 Richmond over No. 3 South Carolina
No. 13 Valparaiso over No. 4 Ole Miss

1999

No. 14 Weber State over No. 3 North Carolina
No. 13 Oklahoma over No. 4 Arizona

2001

No. 13 Kent State over No. 4 Indiana

2002

No. 13 UNC-Wilmington over No. 4 USC

2003

No. 13 Tulsa over No. 4 Dayton

2005

No. 14 Bucknell over No. 3 Kansas
No. 13 Vermont over No. 4 Syracuse

No. 14 Northwestern State over No. 3 Iowa

No. 13 Siena over No. 4 Vanderbilt
No. 13 San Diego over No. 4 UConn

Over the recent years you can see that teams from BCS conferences, outside of Dayton, have been the teams upset. It shows that teams from mid-major conference that get the high seeds have made it at least past round one. Gonzaga and Xavier are safe to move on.  

We are down to six teams: Villanova, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Kansas, Washington, and Missouri. We get a lot of city names and directions in these, but outside of Vermont and Oklahoma, not the well known state schools. Sorry, North Dakota State and Mississippi State, you're done.

The final four finalists to pull off the shocker of all shockers in this year's NCAA Tournament: American (over Villanova), Stephen F. Austin (over Syracuse), Cleveland State (over Wake Forest), or Cornell (over Missouri).

Cleveland State has used all the luck needed to pull off one of these upsets with their shot to beat Syracuse from 60 feet at the beginning of the year. I can't take the school where The Office's Andy Bernard went, so see you later Cornell.

It's down to two Big East teams, and your shocker will come just like back in 1989 when the Richmond Spiders shocked the world—the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks take down the Syracuse Orange.