March Madness First Round Upsets

March Madness: First Round Upsets 

By: Gavin Dobbins

An ‘upset’ occurs when a team wins against their opponent rank 2 or more seeds or higher; for example, a 12 seed beating a 5 seed. According to the NCAA, the most common upsets are… No. 10 seed over No. 7 seed (39.3%), No. 11 seed over No. 6 seed 37.1%, No. 12 seed over No. 5 seed (35.7). After looking over this year’s bracket, I put together some probable first round upsets. 

No. 12 Georgetown over No. 5 Colorado 

Personally, I like this upset because of Georgetown’s performance in the Big East tournament, beating Marquette, Seton Hall, Creighton, and Villanova. Despite winning all these games, they also played solid defense holding them to an average of 56.4 points.    

No. 12 Winthrop over No. 5 Villanova 

Despite their success in recent tournaments, I think Villanova is set up to lose this game. First of all, Villanova is missing their best player who’s out for the season; this may cause an issue come tournament time. Winthrop is led by senior PG Chandler Vaudrin, who leads the nation in triple doubles.   

No. 10 Rutgers over No. 7 Clemson

I don’t like Clemson in this matchup because Clemson only has 1 solid player and a bunch of role players… meanwhile Rudgers has relied on Geo Baker, Myles Johnson, and Ron Harper Jr. to carry them to the Big Ten final.