Men’s Tournament Challenge: Early bracket trends and notes

We’ve spent weeks debating bubble teams, conference champions and bracketology, but now that the 2022 men’s NCAA tournament field has been revealed, it’s time to sign up and fill out your brackets.

Picking the right Final Four is a difficult task, especially with the depth of quality national championship contenders like Gonzaga, Duke and Kansas. Who are the most popular teams chosen as the public fills out their first brackets? What are the trends for underdogs and upsets so far?

Below are some early 2022 ESPN Tournament Challenge bracket trends as well as a look back at some selected 2021 NCAA tournament results.

Monday, 10pm EST Update:

53.7% of brackets have a 1-seed winning it all (last season: 67.5%)

1. Gonzaga: 27.8% (sat at 34.5% in the 4 hours following the bracket release)

2. Arizona: 12.4% (These two teams accounted for 44.2% of the champion picks through 4 hours and while that number has dipped, they seem to be establishing themselves as the top tier of title picks)

3. Kansas: 8.2%

4. Baylor: 5.2%

The most popular non-1-seeds to cut down the nets

1. Duke: 6.6%

2. Kentucky: 6.5%

3. Auburn: 4.3%

4. Tennessee: 4.2%

Big Ten-sion

Much of the early talk has been about fading the Big 10 as a whole and people seem to be putting their brackets where their mouths are:

• Wisconsin: despite having one of the best players in the country and a Big 10 regular season crown, they rank 14th in percentage of champion picks (1.2%)

• Illinois: eliminated in the majority of brackets before the Sweet 16 (gone before then in 52.9% of brackets)

• Purdue: the least picked 3-seed to reach the Sweet 16 (63%)

• Ohio State: the least picked 7-seed to win Round 1 (51.5%)

Seeding is nothing but a number

As noted by Keith Lipscomb: Not only have No. 6 seeds won at least three of the four meetings just once in the past seven tourneys, but since 2010, they have a losing record against No. 11s (21-23). First round pick rates for 11-seeds thus far:

• Michigan (over Colorado State: 53.3% (This is where people seem to be optimistic in a Big 10 school!)

• Virginia Tech (over Texas): 51.3%

• Iowa State (over LSU): 37%

• Even without a clear team, the Rutgers/ND winner has been blindly advanced past Alabama in 27.1% of brackets)

Don’t call it an upset

Notable pick rates among teams highlighted in our annual Giant Killers piece:

• No. 13-seed Vermont (over Arkansas): 19.9% – Giant Killer upset potential: 36%

• No. 13-seed South Dakota State (over Providence): 26.3% – Giant Killer upset potential: 40%

• No. 14-seed Colgate (over Wisconsin): 10% – Giant Killer upset potential: 18%

Monday, 3pm EST update

Popular tournament champions:

1. Gonzaga: 34.5%

2. Arizona: 9.7%

3. Kansas: 6.9%

4. Duke: 5.7%

Popular first-round upsets (double-digit seeds):

1. 11-seed Michigan: 42.1%

2. 11-seed Virginia Tech: 41.9%

3. 10-seed Loyola-Chicago: 37.9%

4. 10-seed Miami: 33.3%

5. 11-seed Iowa State: 30%

Consensus winners of the 8-9 games

• 9-seed Memphis (over Boise State)

• 8-seed North Carolina (over Marquette)

• 8-seed San Diego State (over Creighton)

• 8-seed Seton Hall (over TCU)

2021 recap

Last season, chalk prevailed in terms of the championship matchup as two of the top three most common teams picked to win it all advanced to the season’s final game (Gonzaga and Baylor). The Bears prevailed, something 10.4% of brackets nailed. But it was far from a chalky month of madness.

No. 1 seed Illinois was the second most popular champion (15.2%) in brackets and was picked to win its region by the majority (51.8%), but the Illini led for exactly 0 seconds of their second-round loss to 8-seed Loyola-Chicago.

No. 11 seed UCLA required overtime in the play-in game. The Bruins then advanced to the Final Four (winning three of those four games by 10-plus points) before losing on the miracle Jalen Suggs buzzer-beater in overtime. Only 34% of brackets had UCLA winning a single game, and under 1% (0.9%) had UCLA in the Final Four.

To stay ahead of the field last season, these were the number of correct picks your bracket needed through each of the first three rounds:

• Round 1: 22 of 32 games (35.9% of brackets accomplished this)

• Round 2: 8 of 16 games (29.8% of brackets accomplished this)

• Round 3: 4 of 8 games (33.1% of brackets accomplished this)