The big story in this year's tournament has been the lack of upsets. Only two double digit seeds won first round games. This is the lowest double-digit win total since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The average number of double-digit seed winners between 1985 and 2007 is 5.6. There have been only three legitimate upsets (seed differential greater than three) in this year's tournament: VCU over Duke, Winthrop over Notre Dame and UNLV over Wisconsin. Incredibly, the Elite Eight is comprised of four #1 seeds, three #2 seeds and a #3 seed. This has indeed been a strange year. I can't wait for someone to blame it on global warming.

I think there are a few reasons why we haven't seen many upsets this year:

• The Talent Gap - In recent years the talent gap between the top ten programs and the next tier has diminshed but this season the top programs were loaded. Florida's situation is unique in that many players who could have defected to the NBA last season did not. Kansas and North Carolina is ridiculously talented. Georgetown and UCLA have great experience. Ohio State benefitted from new NBA age restrictions. Ohio State would not be in the Elite Eight without Greg Oden and Greg Oden would probably not be spending a year in college if he didn't have to.



• Close But No Cigar - Many of the power teams have barely survived in close games against lower seeds. Ohio State scraped by twice, Georgetown was in trouble against BC and was trailing Vanderbilt with three seconds left in the game and UCLA appeared dead against Indiana. Kansas and Florida both had trouble against lower seeds in the Sweet Sixteen. Only North Carolina has cruised to the Regional Finals with relative ease. Typically, the underdogs will win some of the close games. This year that hasn't happened.



• Seeding - The Selection Committee actually did a solid job seeding teams this year. The 1, 2 and 3 seeds deserved to be 1, 2 and 3 seeds. In the past, there had been some bizarre seeding which probably led to more upsets. Case in point, Tennessee being installed as a #2 seed last year. The Vols barely survived #15 seed Winthrop in the first round then lost to #7 Wichita State in the second round. North Carolina last year was given a #3 seed they didn't deserve and lost to #11 George Mason in the second round.



• The Weak Bubble - Overall, the bubble teams that made the tournament were not very strong this year and that was exacerbated by corruption on the Committee. Arkansas, Stanford and Texas Tech probably did not belong in this tournament. You can make the case that Arkansas played their way into the tournament by winning three games before losing to Florida in the SEC Finals. You cannot make a legitimate case for Stanford, an 18-12 team with an RPI of 63 that was 3-6 down the stretch. Nor could an honest person argue that Texas Tech (9-7 in the Big XII) deserved to get in ahead of Kansas State (10-6 in the Big XII) after the Wildcats walloped the Red Raiders by 21 points in the Big XII Tournament. Clearly, there is some funny business going on in that Committee.



• Pure Chance - This was bound to happen sometime.

The following table shows just how few upsets there have been this year. I added the seed number of the winners for the first three rounds and found that 2007 had by far the lowest total since 1992 I don't have data prior to 1992). Through three rounds the sum of the winning seeds is 219. What a contrast to the 319 in 2006.

It is also interesting that seven conferences are reprensented in this year's Elite Eight. Only the Pac Ten (UCLA, Oregon) is sending more than one team to the Regional Finals.

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