March Madness: Ranking the Most Likely 12/5 Upsets

Over the past 16 NCAA Tournaments, there have been 27 instances of a 12 seed upsetting a 5 seed, meaning the 12 seed wins at a clip of 42.19% in that span. Only twice in the past 16 seasons has there been a Big Dance without a 12/5 upset.

Last season, we got just one such game -- 12th-seeded Middle Tennessee knocking off Minnesota, which our metrics had as the most likely 12/5 upset in the 2017 big dance -- but two of the other 12/5 games were decided by a combined seven total points.

We'll probably get at least one 12/5 upset this year, and picking these games correctly can give you a leg up in your pool.

Using our metrics, let's take a look at this year's 12/5 games and see which are most likely to end in a 12 seed winning, ranking them from least to most probable, according to our nERD metric. For those of you who may be new to numberFire, nERD measures the number of points we'd expect a team to win by against an average opponent on a neutral court.

Want to get a huge leg up on your March Madness pool? Subscribe to numberFire and get instant access to power rankings, bracket picks, game simulators, and tons of awesome expert advice to help you make the right decision.

Even better, we're offering our subscriptions at $19 over the first month when you use the promo code BRACKET.

Find Out More