First round upsets

Some interesting numbers from Salon’s King Kaufman:

Here’s the number of first-round upsets, not counting 9-over-8, in each of the last 10 years:

1996 — 6
1997 — 5
1998 — 8
1999 — 7
2000 — 3
2001 — 9
2002 — 7
2003 — 5
2004 — 3
2005 — 5 …

Here are second-round upsets over the last 10 years, not counting 5-over-4. Keep in mind, the second round is only 16 games, half as many as the first:

1996 — 3
1997 — 5
1998 — 3
1999 — 6
2000 — 8
2001 — 3
2002 — 5
2003 — 4
2004 — 5
2005 — 5

So over the last 10 years there have been 58 upsets in the first round, or one every 5.5 games. In the second round there have been 47 upsets, one every 3.4 games.

And, for all the talking heads nonsense last weekend about “parity,” no real trends, though Kaufman theorizes that the NCAA is seeding the tournament better.