Everyone knows that guy in the office that nailed picked Cornell or St. Mary's or Washington in his NCAA tournament bracket last year and has been bragging about it since then. Picking the big upsets is where the glory is and it's how you separate yourself from all those people making the "chalk" picks and ending up with four #1 seeds in the final. So we're here to help with some upset picks for the first round of the NCAA tournament.
These are all based on Accuscore game simulations that have been run 10,000 times.
#11 Missouri Tigers over #6 Cincinnati Bearcats - The Mizzou Tigers won 55% of these matchups with average score of about 72-70. So as 6-11 matchups go, this one is close, which makes Mizzou a nice upset pick.
#12 Richmond Spiders over #5 Vanderbilt Commodores - The 5-12 matchups are always ones ripe for upsets and this year look for Atlantic 10 tournament champs Richmond to knock off Vanderbilt. The Spiders won 55% of the simulated matchups.
This leads us to the Southeast region, which is absolutely rife with potential upsets. This is an interesting region because it has good #1 and #2 seeds, but otherwise could really be totally open.
#13 Belmont Bruins over #4 Wisconsin Badgers - Belmont is 21-1 over their last 22 games, has only lost 4 times all year and is one of the hottest teams in the country coming into the tournament. Over 10,000 simulations these two split 50/50, making Belmont the best bet for an upset among the 12 seeds.
#11 Gonzaga Bulldogs over #6 St. John's Red Storm - This is a really solid upset pick with the Zags winning 57% of the simulations. The loss of the Johnnies leading rebounder and defender, senior forward D.J. Kennedy is likely a big factor here.
#10 Michigan St. Spartans over #7 UCLA Bruins - The Spartans won 57% of the simulations here by an average score of about 66-63.
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