Talk:NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament upsets

Can we do a list of 8s/9s that beat a one seed in the second round? True there were no 16's beating a one but there have been several 8s/9s that beat a one seed in the second round. One of which (I'm sorry to say) was UAB beating Kentucky in 2004 and I think there were TWO one seeds in 1996 that got beat by an 8/9 seed. I think that kind of list is needed here also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.81.255.95 (talk) 04:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

When a low seed beats an even lower seed, it is not an upset. I like the completeness of the information, but there should be a better place to put this info than a page called "upsets."

Terminology: Low seed and high seed
The terminology here is backwards. Seeds are #1 (highest) to #16 (lowest) not the other way around. This should be changed. The lower number does not equate to a low seed. The lower the number means closer to the top (the best). It's just like a ranking. If UCLA is ranked #2 and Oregon is ranked #6, UCLA is the higher ranked team. Seeds are the same way. The better a team is thought to be, the closer to the top they are seeded. Bbigjohnson (talk) 04:45, 2 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Higher seeds are afforded privileges such as home field advantage earlier in the tournament, indicating that they truly are of higher status and that thinking of "high" and "low" seeds cannot be equated to whether the number of their seed is higher or lower. Simple but powerful  18:03, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

What seeds should be included?
My personal opinion is 11 seeds and worse in the round of 64, 8 and worse from the round of 32 up to the elite 8, and 6 seeds and lower in the final four and championship. I'm open to discussion, though. Skarmory  (talk •   contribs)  20:30, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I added 9's and 8's in the Sweet 16 and 7's in the Elite 8. I don't think I'd move any further from this except for possibly 9s or 8s in the round of 32, I'd also remove 10-v-7 in the round of 64. I'll give it until the end of the tournament for someone to respond to this, if nobody does I'll probably remove 10 vs 7. Skarmory   (talk •   contribs)  00:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not married to showing the 10v7s in the first round, but I did think it would be a bit odd to toss them in out of nowhere when they beat 2 seeds in the second round. I thought the page would make more sense as a whole if it shows how those teams get there, with a little upset before a big upset. Also, I think this table (copied from here) is significant: historically, it's a big deal when 13 seeds beat 4 seeds, but it's not nearly so unusual for 12, 11, or 10 seeds to beat their 7, 6, and 5 seed matchups. Looking at it that way, if we exclude 10v7 in round one, it's hard to justify keeping 11v6 and even 12v5. Put that another way, if winning with a 40% chance doesn't merit this page, then why should winning with a 35% chance merit this page? Catholic things (talk) 13:40, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The No. 1 seed is 143–1 against the No. 16 seed (.990)
 * The No. 2 seed is 135–9 against the No. 15 seed (.930)
 * The No. 3 seed is 122–22 against the No. 14 seed (.840)
 * The No. 4 seed is 113–31 against the No. 13 seed (.780)
 * The No. 5 seed is 93–51 against the No. 12 seed (.640)
 * The No. 6 seed is 90–54 against the No. 11 seed (.620)
 * The No. 7 seed is 87–57 against the No. 10 seed (.600)
 * The No. 8 seed is 71–73 against the No. 9 seed (.490)


 * Huh. I never noticed that 10 seeds had that low of a win%. In that case, I'm fine keeping them in. Skarmory   (talk •   contribs)  02:00, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi all, can I revisit a mention from above (about 8 years ago) about including the 8/9 over 1 upsets? The introduction to the page goes into great detail about how the "official" definition of an upset is 5 seed lines lower, etc., yet we are missing out on a fair bit of official upsets then by not including the 8/9 over 1 upset. It's a big deal when the top seed of a region doesn't even make it to the Sweet 16, and these are sometimes among the more memorable upsets in tournament history (Boston College over UNC in 1994, UAB over Kentucky in 2004, Wichita State and Butler on the way to their Final 4 runs, etc.) Now that we are including 8 and 9 seed wins in the next round, I don't think it's out of the blue to include their wins in this round either (by definition, they are bigger upsets anyway, since they'd only be playing no higher than a 4 in the sweet 16.)
 * I think that 7 over 2 should even be included, if not for anything else than on the grounds that they are official upsets, being 5 seeds lower and everything. However I definitely want to start with 8/9 over 1 games because I think it is a big, big miss not to include them.Garrettcarrot12 (talk) 01:14, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

more data needed
the stats for 2 round upsets are not useful because only the number of upsets are presented not the % of upsets between 2 specific seeds 2600:1702:4560:5070:1CD:FD6D:2F81:C50C (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Trivia only when nothing else to say
, the writing style of the trivia is moot. The fact is, this section had trivia about "near misses" since 2008, only because there were no actual examples of a 16 seed defeating a 1 seed. The trivia was simply interesting filler given the lack of examples that actually met the definition of the article - which is not "NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament almost-but-did-not-happen upsets". There are now two legitimate examples of a 16 seed knocking off a 1 seed. This trivia should have been removed after the 2018 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, when the article was adjusted to reflect the first example that actually did meet the criteria of the article. Jmg38 (talk) 01:22, 19 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The large amount of media coverage around each of the almost-upsets means that each of those events was notable to Wikipedia's standards, and those games do not cease to be notable because actual upsets happen. The concern about those events not technically satisfying the name of the article would only be relevant if there were an article called "NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament almost-but-did-not-happen upsets" and it would be better to put that information there. Otherwise, we use the standard of aviation articles which include near misses in lists of incidents, even though near misses are not actually incidents.
 * Do not repeatedly remove large amounts of content without first seeking consensus on the talk page. This kind of double revert can potentially be seen as bad faith. Legolover26 (talk) 07:31, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It should simply say that it is the second time a 16 has defeated a 1, the first is UMBC over Virginia in 2018. The rest is trivial and is found elsewhere on Wikipedia. We don't need to replicate the amount of informaton on every page we mention a 16 seed. -UCO2009bluejay (talk) 22:56, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I was confused about the argument. I thought this was including it pages such as the 2023 page. I was incorrect. Here is the correct place for it as long as it is in proper context. I do agree with what Alvaldi said on the WT:CBBALL page about the lack of sourcing. That is the bigger issue.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:01, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Article overhaul
Honestly, the way this article is written right now is sort of a mess. The seeds included are rather arbitrary – yes, there have been talk page discussions about which to include, but I'm more talking about it from a reader's perspective – and it gets worse with future rounds, where in some cases there is barely any separation between what is officially considered an upset, what is a win by a lower seed, and what is a win by a low seed over an even lower seed that isn't actually an upset.

I'd like to try and overhaul this article at some point, probably after the tournament ends this year. I don't know exactly what to include, and this would make quite a few changes, so I'm mentioning this on the talk page – if you have any grievances/etc. with the article as-is, this would be a good place to air them, because I'm not exactly sure where to start.

My current thinking is to focus more on the official NCAA definition of an upset (so 5 seed line differences) – sourcing should also be improved, as mentioned in the above section. When I get around to actually working on this, I'll take a closer look at applicable Wikipedia/WPCBB policies. Skarmory  (talk •   contribs)  20:24, 24 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I have begun the overhaul at User:Skarmory/NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament upsets. Feel free to chip in or contribute however you see fit. I wrote a bit more on what I'm attempting to do with the overhaul on that page. Skarmory   (talk •   contribs)  22:13, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the format I've gone with is solid for now, which cuts 10vs7 in the first round. I doubt many people watch this talk page outside tourney season, but if anyone shows up and is interested in helping, feel free. I am not looking forward to having to cite ~300-500 entries manually. Skarmory  (talk •   contribs)  05:30, 4 June 2023 (UTC)