Upsets are the sugar highs of the NCAA Tournament, the jolt of electricity that thrills hard-core fans of college basketball and those just passing by alike.
They’re also the event’s backbone. It’s not an exaggeration to say they’re the reason millions fill out brackets for a sport that they might barely follow during its regular season.
There is frequently a hair-thin margin, though, between an upset and just another team coming oh-so-close in defeat. Sometimes near-upsets still make tremendous theater. The tournament can survive and is still a great event without upsets.
It also can still be great even without buzzer-beaters. It can even be a great event when it has few teams with any charm whatsoever left in it.
When the tournament is lacking upsets, buzzer beaters, charm, and close games? That’s when an event that seemingly never fails to deliver is at risk of not delivering, and-if not in trouble-at least is starting to encroach on it.
Terms like ‘boring’ and ‘meh’ have been thrown around quite a bit to describe the first week of the 2019 NCAA Tournament. They are maybe a tad harsh, but also accurate, and-at least from this view-not so much because of a lack of upsets as a lack of compelling games, period.
After many years of watching the tournament, for as much fun as upsets are, just seeing an unknown 14 or 15 seed scare the pants off Land Grant U. is still a thrill. If they complete the task it is almost gravy.
Even this year, we were a few seconds and a few bounces of the ball from having Cinderella still around. Central Florida was a very makeable tip from Aubrey Dawkins from eliminating Duke. (Between this and Wake Forest’s tap-in attempt at the buzzer in Cameron Indoor Stadium somehow rolling off, how does Duke have such luck with tip-ins going off the rim?) Wofford trailed Kentucky by two with 19 seconds left before a very disputable foul led to a four-point lead, and the Terriers almost certainly would’ve beaten the Wildcats if the best shooter in the country had made even two of his 12 three-point attempts.
The bigger problems with this year’s tourney so far have been that, in the area of close, quality games, it is down. Well down.
Comparing the tourney after 52 games each of the last six years, here are how this year’s tourney measures up so far in the areas of games decided by single digits or in overtime, games decided by five points or less/overtime, and games decided by a single possession/overtime:
| Through 52 games | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| Single digits/OT | 23 | 28 | 25 | 27 | 25 | 20 |
| 5 pts or less/OT | 16 | 17 | 15 | 14 | 20 | 10 |
| Single possession/OT | 13 | 13 | 8 | 8 | 11 | 6 |
| Final tourney totals for single possession/OT | 18 | 15 | 10 | 14 | 14 | TBD |
With just 15 games left in this year’s event, it will need a rally to surpass the 10 games decided by three points or less or in overtime in 2013 and 2016 that is the low for that category since the tourney expanded to 68 teams in 2011. In fact, every tourney since the field was just 16 teams in 1974 has had at least eight of those ‘close games’ (as they’re defined as in the NCAA’s own tournament records book), and only three times since the field was as much as even 40 teams has the number been in single digits (1994, 2002 and 2009).
If that’s not enough, the overall average margin of victory in tournament games this year through 52 games is 13.75 points. If that held to the end, from our research it would be the sixth-highest in the 81-year history of the tournament, and (to compare to more relevant sample sizes in terms of games) the third-highest in the 35 years since the tourney went to 64 teams in 1985.
All of this is to say: if it feels like there haven’t been as many good games this year, that’s because it’s the truth.
We did get perhaps our game of the tournament with Duke against UCF, with the Knights giving a terrific effort against the overall top seed but the heavyweight Blue Devils making big plays (and perhaps getting help from some no-calls?) in the final two minutes to advance. Also, some of the games that ended up with a wider margin at the end were very good watches. Bradley’s effort against Michigan State was one; also, Wofford’s 16-point win over Seton Hall was a one-point game with just over four to play.
We also know that margin of victory certainly doesn’t tell all. In fact, the feeling here is that it has been generally overblown in recent years in a sport where fouling in the final two minutes can quickly make a three-point game a double-digit margin by the buzzer, or where a coach with a 25-point lead or deficit may clear the bench early and skew the final score considerably.
Still, for the games where a Bradley or Seton Hall might’ve fallen off at the end, there also were some that ended with close margins but the winner was still in control almost throughout (LSU’s five-point victory over Yale) or where a close finish was more ineptness than excellence (Auburn stumbling past New Mexico State). The numbers tend to even out in the end. And they’re making a pretty clear conclusion.
Anecdotally, the docket of memorable games is slim. Besides Duke/UCF, Maryland’s games against Belmont and LSU were very good. The same with Iowa’s games against Cincinnati and Tennessee-or at least the second half of the latter. Wofford’s matchups with Seton Hall and Kentucky were excellent. Colgate gave Tennessee a good push. Villanova and Saint Mary’s was a terrific slowdown chess match. UC Irvine’s defeat of Kansas State was fun, and Belmont getting its first NCAA tourney win and nearly getting to the second round was a good story.
One would be hard-pressed to add more than a handful of others to that list.
The tourney has featured a pair of outstanding individuals in Zion Williamson and Ja Morant, and their play-especially Morant’s, as he carried Murray State on his back for a game and a half-was a big part of the weekend. Williamson is rare for his massive following before he even reached college, though, and the bottom line is two stars can only carry this event so far.
Though it’s impossible to draw concrete takeaways, in some ways this all shouldn’t be surprising. Most every change to the sport the last couple years has favored those at the very top, so it’s only natural that they’d be exercising their strength in March.
Grad transfers and transfers up-and unprecedented transfer movement in general-are making it harder and harder to build experienced teams at the lower and middle levels of Division I, an area where these schools used to have a distinct advantage over the early pro departure-loaded big boys. At some point this was going to take a toll on those teams.
Television coverage has condensed to give the vast majority now to a few leagues. Much of the coverage that there is from a certain worldwide leader is focused mainly on a select few teams and players.
The recent round of rule changes also absolutely favored the teams with the biggest, fastest athletes. The 30-second shot clock makes for more possessions, has encouraged the teams with the best athletes to get out and run more, and also relies on teams striking gold at the end of the shot clock, and all while also leaving fewer options for less-gifted teams trying to figure out a way to combat this. That’s great for the biggies, not so great for the rest.
The college basketball media has largely cheered these developments, so in many ways, you could say the NCAA Tournament we’ve gotten this year is exactly what they’ve asked for.
It will likely take adjustment by those lower seeds to counter in a game that increasingly favors the best athletes. Most schools have chosen to play the same NBA styles under the 30-second clock, which is going to typically be a losing plan against a team playing the same style but with longer, better athletes. (We still don’t understand why more don’t run an offense like Brad Underwood’s spread motion that was so successful at Stephen F. Austin) On the other hand, a major problem with the shorter shot clock and things like resetting the clock to only 20 seconds after a defensive foul is that it limits room for innovation offensively.
Even if we get more upsets, though, will it ensure that we get more close games overall? It’s not just the unknowns who are getting beaten regularly by double digits. Shoot, even defending national champion Villanova was eliminated by 26 points.
Either way, the trends this year should at least start getting the attention of the caretakers of this sport. This is college basketball’s showcase, its front window. If the NCAA Tournament is not delivering, it’s hard to figure out exactly what will.
Twitter: @HoopvilleAdam
