I had been wondering if upsets were truly becoming more common as the years went by or did it simply feel that way. After 16 seed FDU's upset of top seeded Purdue last night I had to look into it. The number of upsets is simply the number of lower seeded teams who beat higher seeded teams in the first round of the tournament. The average seed difference is the seed of the higher seed subtracted from the lower seed and averaged for all upsets in a year (9 over 8 has a difference of 1, 12 over 5 has a difference of 7, etc.).

Since the Round of 64 began in 1985, both upsets and the average seed difference have been on the rise. For this visualization games between 8 and 9 seeds have been included even though the NCAA does not classify them as upsets. Had they not been included the broad trends still hold, with the average seed difference actually becoming more pronounced (6.7 average seed difference this year with 9 over 8 wins included, 9 average seed difference with those games excluded for example).

Source: NCAA archived brackets found on NCAA.com

Tools: Microsoft Excel