Miracle Covers

NCAA Round 2

Worried about a top seed who nearly lost in round 1? Here’s something to consider.

There are two schools of thought on being tested by a lesser opponent early in the tourney. The optimistic view is that a close game like that serves as a useful wake-up call, and that most teams play such a close game somewhere along their NCAA Tournament path. The pessimistic perspective is that struggling in the early rounds reveals weaknesses that better teams can take full advantage of in later rounds.

Can we learn anything about these situations from the numbers? Using the incredible new treasure trove of NCAA history offered by sports-reference.com, I went through the last 10 NCAA Tournaments to find examples of top-three seeds playing games decided by five points or fewer in the first round. In that span, no No. 1 seed has gotten such a serious scare from a 16, but five No. 2 seeds have eked out victories and nine No. 3 seeds have won by five points or fewer.

The second seeds who were tested in the first round indeed struggled the next time out, going just 2-3. By comparison, No. 2 seeds who were more dominant in their opening-round wins won 58.8 percent of the time. (One oddity from these numbers: Third seeds were more successful in the second round overall than second seeds over the past decade. In 2000, three of the four No. 2 seeds failed to reach the Sweet Sixteen.)

At the same time, third seeds saw little to no carry-over. They went 7-2 in second-round games, which is better than their peers who got off to a better start.

Official color commentator of Miracle Covers Bill Raftery was the subject of a recent SI article. He had the quote of round one telling America that Scottie Reynolds, “stroked it admirably today,” and causing anyone who was playing the Bill Raftery Drinking Game to take a sip. Unofficial onion count : 1

“He’s the only person I know who can say, ‘F— you’ and make you think it’s a compliment,”