2009 NCAA Tourney Recap

Overall, a pretty poor NCAA tournament ended last night in the largest championship halftime margin ever and the largest championship final margin since 1992.

Some stats:
  • Top 3 seeds were 24-0 in the first two rounds. No upsets.
  • Top 4 seeds were 29-2 in the first two rounds.
  • Wake Forest was the only #4 seed to lose its first round game. And they lost by 15, so it wasn't really all that exciting.
  • Three #12 seeds (Arizona, Wisconsin, and Western Kentucky) won first round games.
  • #12 seed Arizona made it to the sweet 16. Purdue (#5) was the only other non-top-4 seed to make the sweet 16.
  • There were no overtime games on the first day of the tournament. On the second day (still the first round), Wisconsin beat Florida State in overtime and Siena beat Ohio State in double-overtime. Those were the only overtime games in the whole tournament.
  • Out of 63 games, there were 2 games decided by 1 point, 6 decided by 2 points, 1 decided by 3 points, and 3 decided by 4 points. That's 12 games (19%, or 1 out of 5) that were "close" games.
  • There were 40 games (63%) decided by 10 or more points. (The "opening round" game or "play-in" game was also decided by double-digits).

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