BracketScience

After the first day of the round of 32, the Madometer is still measuring well above record levels of insanity. The Wichita State upset of Gonzaga pushed it over the edge–and further cemented Mark Few’s reputation as a snakebit tourney coach. All the big-time underachieving coaches didn’t fail to disappoint: Few, Dixon, Alford, Brey. You can add John Thompson III to the list of coaches with low PASE values. Meanwhile, two coaches whose PASE was soaring have come back down to earth somewhat. But Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens failed to meet expected win totals for their seed positions.

Even if every game goes to seed expectations today, the Madometer will still sit at 22.1% madness. Something tells me that perfect higher-seed dominance is not in the cards today. I suspect will add at least one upset to the already above-average total of nine.

Yesterday’s blood-letting drove the Madometer to new heights. The Minnesota upset-that-wasn’t-an-upset was foretold by practically every bracket model. There were signs that Cal could take UNLV, and even indications that LaSalle might upset Kansas State. But hardly any numbers liked the Ole Miss upset. And then there was the Florida Gulf Coast stunning of Georgetown–which reader Alex loudly and confidently called. He’s quit his day job and bought a ticket to Vegas.

When the first round ended late last night, there we seven upsets–and the Madometer was all the way up to 25.0%. I’m going to wait for the results of round two, but if it goes any higher, I’m going to have to redesign the darn thing. Heck, even if all the higher seeds win over the weekend, the Madometer will still show 17.9% unpredictability. And, amazingly, if things go chalk throughout the rest of the dance, it will only settle to 12.0% madness. That’s already crazier than eight of the past 28 dances. Of course, the madness will continue. Some of the higher seeds looked very shaky. Gonzaga, Kansas and Marquette seem like good candidates for early exits.

As bad as it all was, the upsets didn’t do serious damage to anyone’s bracket–unless you had Georgetown, New Mexico or Wisconsin going beyond the Sweet 16. I took a quick look at the bracket models last night–and they’re mostly in the 45-85 percentile range on ESPN. But the difference between good and bad at this point is about three picks. The real shakeout is about to happen. I’ll report on the state of the models later today.