jfsolo23 wrote:
Your observations are on point too. This is me guessing but their seems to be some degree of rating equalization in conference and post season tournaments to produce more "March Madness" moments, but I think that it's somewhat overpowered.
Just ran a postseason with the following conference tournament upsets:
America East - #9 NJIT beats #1 Hartford
Atlantic Sun - #9 Bellarmine beats #1 Eastern Kentucky
Big East - #9 Marquette beats #1 St. John's
Big Sky - #9 Eastern Washington beats #1 Portland State
Horizon - #8 Wright State beats #1 Cleveland State
MAAC - #9 Niagara beats #1 Quinnipiac
MAC - #9 Eastern Michigan beats #1 Buffalo
Summit - #8 North Dakota beats #1 Oral Roberts
SEC - #9 Tennessee beats #1 Auburn
Southern - #8 VMI beats #1 Chattanooga
SWAC - #8 Jackson State beats #1 Southern
WAC - #9 Utah Valley beats #1 Cal Baptist
In both the Southland and Ivy, the #1 lost their first game played to the #4 seed. This is all in ONE season. And I had noticed this happening in previous years before getting to these results.
This is an epidemic of 1 seeds losing to what mostly should be pretty bad teams. I get it's an imperfect scientific experiment to just list results, especially when injuries can play a factor in seeding and strength of a team, but it does seem awfully high to me. Not sure what can be done about it, but I find it interesting.