NCAA Tournament: Previewing the 8/9 Matchups
Unlike most NCAA tournament matchups, the tricky 8/9 games usually pit two evenly matched teams against one another. Generally, people will tell you to ignore the seeds handed out to these teams because there isn't much of a gap between the two.
In the sense of seeding that's right. However, past performance doesn't agree quite as much.
Over the last 10 years, the count is 25 wins for the 8 seeds and 15 wins for the 9 seeds -- 9 seeds win 37.5% of the time. So, while 9 over 8 seed victories shouldn't be considered big upsets -- as they happen, on average, more than once a year --they're much less likely not to happen than to happen.
That being said, which 9 seeds do our numbers think are more likely to overcome their 8-seeded counterparts this tournament time?
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