In last year's NCAA Tournament, we saw the fewest number of upsets since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 (that's as far back as I have collected data). In fact, it wasn't even close. The sum of all the winning seeds in the 2007 tournament was 230. The next lowest was 271 (in 1993) and the average for 1985-2008 is 295. This season, we did have a few a few upsets - there were two #12 vs #13 second round games and #10 seed Davidson came within one shot of the Final Four - but the sum of winning seeds this season was only 285 despite the two 12/13 matchups. So following the crazy 2006 tournament, we've had relatively few upsets in the past two tournaments. In fact, 2008 marked the first time that all four #1 seeds reached the Final Four.

It shouldn't really surprise anyone that all four #1 seeds reached the 2008 Final Four. Kansas, Memphis, UCLA and North Carolina were all in the Regional Finals last year. Memphis was also in the Regional Finals in 2006. This season, UCLA reached the Final Four for the third year in a row. In addition to the tournament experience, all four of those teams returned key players this season. If there was ever a time to pick all #1 seeds in your Final Four bracket, this was it (for the record, I did not).

There were a few great games in this year's tournament including Western Kentucky-Drake, Duke-Belmont, Davidson-Georgetown and of course Kansas-Memphis, but all things considered, this was not a great NCAA Tournament from a competitive standpoint. I crunched the numbers and found that the average margin of victory in this year's tourney was 14.0, the second highest total since the expansion in 1985. The least competitive tournament was in 1993 with an average margin of victory of 14.6 points. The two most competitive tournaments were 1985 (8.7) and 2006 (9.8). The 2008 Tournament also tied the record for most games decided by ten points or more (42). So exactly two-thirds of the games were decided by ten or more points.

Here are some other numbers:

• In the year's tournament, a team seeded four or more spots lower than their opponent won eight times. This happened only three times in 2007 but twelve times in 2006. In the average year, it occurs 8.5 times.



• Davidson became the 12th double-digit seed to reach the Elite Eight. Only #11 LSU (1986) and #11 George Mason (2006) have reached the Final Four. Davidson was only the second double-digit seed since 2002 to reach the Elite Eight.



• North Carolina's 113 points against Mount St. Mary's was the 12th most since the 1985 expansion. The all time record is held by Loyola Marymount (they beat Michigan 149-115 in 1990).



• Western Kentucky and Drake (101-99) became the 20th pair of teams to combine for 200 or more points in a game. Loyola Marymount (1988-90) participated in all five of the highest scoring games (they lost three of them).



• Mississippi Valley State's 29 points against UCLA was the lowest in the 1985-2008 era. UCLA's 70-29 victory was the 12th largest margin of victory. Kansas' 110-52 win over Prairie View in 1998 remains the biggest blowout.



• Six double-digit seeds won first round games this year. That happened only twice last year but eight times in 2006.



• For the second year in a row, seven conferences were represented in the Elite Eight. The Big XII (Kansas and Texas) had two teams.

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