25 NCAA tournament facts you probably didn't know
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Cinderella runs usually end in early rounds: Since the tournament started seeding teams in 1979, the lowest seed to ever win a championship was an 8 (Villanova, 1985) and 33 out of the 38 champions since then have all been 1, 2 or 3 seeds.
Don’t go all chalk: Even though lower seeds rarely win titles, there are still plenty of upsets year after year in the first few rounds. Since 1985, when the tournament field expanded to 64, there have been 291 instances where double-digit seeds have beaten higher-seeded opponents. That’s an average over more than nine significant upsets per year.
Top seeds aren’t always top dogs: There’s only been one time (2008) where all four No. 1 seeds made the final four in the 38 tournaments since seeding began.
The 12 over 5 seed upset is overblown: The latest numbers show that 12 seeds are no more likely to pull a first-round upset than 11s, 10s or 9s. The 12 seeds have the same win percentage over 5s (46-82) as 11s do vs. 6s. The truth is, 10 seeds (50-78 against 7s) and 9 seeds (64-64 against 8s) have had more success in the round of 64. So don’t let anyone tell you 12-5 is the most common upset.
In this April 1, 1985, file photo, Villanova celebrates after defeating Georgetown to win the NCAA college basketball championship in Lexington, Ky. That Villanova team still stands as the lowest seeded team (8) to ever win a title. (AP Photo/Gary Landers, File) Leaders in the field:
Leading scorer: South Dakota State’s Mike Daum (25.3 points per game)
Leading rebounder: Seton Hall’s Angel Delgado (13.1 per game)
Assist leader: UCLA’s Lonzo Ball (254)
Best 3-point shooter (min. 2.5 attempts per game): Marquette’s Markus Howard (54.9 percent)Team leaders in the field:
Best scoring offense: UCLA (90.4 points per game)
Best scoring defense: Virginia (55.6 ppg allowed)
Best 3-point shooting team: Marquette (43.0 percent)
Best free-throw shooters: Notre Dame (79.9 percent)
Best rebounding team: North Carolina (43.5 per game)
Most turnovers forced: West Virginia (20.4 per game)
Most blocked shots: Oregon (226)Tallest and shortest players in the field: Florida State sophomore reserve center Christ Koumadje is the tallest player in the NCAA tournament, listed at 7 feet, 4 inches. Mount St. Mary’s starting point guard Junior Robinson is the shortest in the tourney, standing at 5-foot-5.
So many animals: There are 38 teams in this year’s 68-team tournament field nicknamed after some kind of animal, real or fictional. The most popular is Wildcats, which five teams use: Villanova, Kentucky, Arizona, Kansas State and Northwestern. There are also 13 schools with bird-related mascots.
It’s not all about championships: There are 351 NCAA Division I college basketball teams, and only 35 of them have ever won a national title since they became official in 1939. That means more than 90 percent of all those basketball teams have never hoisted a championship trophy. It’s a big reason why just making the dance is such a big deal.
Power struggles: Northwestern has been a big story this season, officially becoming the very last team in a traditional power conference (Big East, SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12) to qualify for an NCAA tournament. Other than Northwestern, there’s just one other power conference team that has never won an NCAA tournament game: Nebraska. Despite seven appearances, the Cornhuskers are 0-7 all-time in the tourney.
Mid-majors don’t get it done: The bottom line is teams playing outside traditional power conferences very rarely make deep runs in the tournament, especially in recent years. In the last 30 NCAA tournaments, only 12 mid-majors have made it to the Final Four and only one of those teams won it all: UNLV in 1990.
Bruins the best: UCLA is the all-time leader in NCAA men’s basketball titles, with 11. Kentucky is second place, with eight.
Always the bridesmaid: Notre Dame has the most NCAA tournament appearances (35) without winning a title. The team has reached just one Final Four, in 1978.
Even more the bridesmaid: BYU leads the nation in NCAA tournament appearances without reaching a single Final Four, with 29. BYU has made three Elite Eights.
Automatic Jayhawks: This year, Kansas set the all-time record for most consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, with 28. That eclipses North Carolina’s mark of 27 straight from 1975 to 2001.
One state didn’t dance: Forty-nine out of 50 states have had at least one team reach the NCAA tournament. The one that hasn’t: Maine. It’s a state that has just one NCAA Division I basketball team, the University of Maine.
March megabucks: A 30-second commercial during the 2015 NCAA championship game cost advertisers an average of $1.56 million, according to Kantar Media. That was a higher cost than the NBA Finals, World Series and College Football Playoff Championship during the same year. It’s second only to the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl.
Literally nobody is perfect: There’s still never been a documented case of someone filling out a perfect NCAA tournament bracket. Don’t hold your breath. Various mathematicians have calculated the odds of hitting every pick perfectly at somewhere around 1 in 9.2 quintillion. That’s 9.2 followed by 17 zeros. In other words, it’s virtually impossible.
East Coast bias or reality?: For those on the West Coast complaining their teams don’t get enough national love, keep in mind no team from the Pacific Time zone has even advanced to a Final Four since UCLA did it in 2008. The last team anywhere near the West Coast to win a national title was Arizona in 1997.
Conference of Champions: Though the Pac-12 has seen a lack of recent success in the tournament, the conference boasts more NCAA men’s basketball championships than any other league, with 15. The ACC is second with 13. So Bill Walton is right: the Pac-12 is the Conference of Champions!
Magic man: Magic Johnson came the closest to any player in history to averaging a triple-double for the NCAA tournament, putting up 21.8 points, 8.8 rebounds and 10 assists (unofficially, because assists were not an official stat until 1984) per contest across five tourney games en route to Michigan State’s championship victory. Johnson was naturally named that year’s Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
Indiana State’s Larry Bird (33) and Michigan State’s Magic Johnson (below) faced off in an epic duel of soon-to-be NBA legends in the NCAA championship game on March 30, 1979. (AP Photo/File) Highest rated game: Speaking of Magic Johnson, when his Michigan State team defeated Larry Bird’s Indiana State squad in the 1979 NCAA Championship game, an estimated 35.1 million people tuned in, according to Nielsen. That still stands as the most watched NCAA basketball game of all time.
Most Outstanding Players of all: Hall of Famer and former UCLA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the only one to ever win three NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player awards (1967-69). Only four other players have won the award twice, the last of which was fellow UCLA center Bill Walton in 1972-73.
Most Outstanding Loser: The last player to win the Most Outstanding Player honor without his team winning the championship was Hakeem Olajuwon of Houston in 1983. It was hard to argue against Hakeem “The Dream,” who had 20 points and 18 rebounds in the title game against NC State. No NC State player score more than 15 points nor did any of them record a double-double in the game.
Freshman phenoms: Only five freshman players have ever won the tourney’s Most Outstanding Player award, with three of them currently on NBA rosters. The list includes Tyus Jones (Duke, 2015), Anthony Davis (Kentucky, 2012), Carmelo Anthony (Syracuse, 2003), Pervis Ellison (Louisville, 1986) and Arnie Ferrin (Utah, 1944).
