Picking favorites in the NCAA tournament is the smart play, but what makes March Madness great is the upsets and Cinderella teams who pull off something special. And let’s not forget the bragging rights that come with correctly predicting an upset in your own bracket pool.
We can be reasonably sure an early upset won’t happen to the No.1 seed — since 1985, when the tournament expanded to 64 teams, the top four seeded teams are 104-0 in the first round. In fact, the top three seeds are 292-20 in Round 1, so we will concentrate our upset picks elsewhere. And while a No. 9 seed beating the No. 8 seed in the first round is technically an upset, we are going to focus on the true underdogs: those that are at least four seeds below the favorite they are facing.
