March Madness has drawn to a close after another wild year of upsets and underdogs. But, another No. 1 seed came away with the championship at the end, the seventh to do so since ’09. No other sport can compare to college basketball when it comes to an unexpected twist or unruly postseason. Or can it? Let’s look at how “mad” March really gets.
Using Sports Odds History, I looked at, in my opinion, the six major leagues of sports: MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL, NCAAFB, and NCAAMB. What I found when I did the average from the last ten years of preseason odds for the eventual champion was surprising.
| MLB | NHL | NBA | NFL | CFB | CBB | |
| Avg Preseason Rank | 8.5 | 4.7 | 2.7 | 7.6 | 5.9 | 7.8 |
Part of college basketball’s selling point is the unpredictability. In other sports, the rich get richer, the favorite wins, and the hero saves the day. Everything goes according to plan. But, the numbers disagree. From preseason odds, the MLB is harder to predict than college basketball, and the NFL is nipping at its heels. Only the NBA is falling into the traditional trope of predictability with the champ having, on average, the 2.7th best odds in the league.
However, the other appeal of college basketball isn’t just the preseason unpredictability, it’s the postseason. Sudden death and 68 teams provide for a level of uncertainty unparalleled in sports. Again, not quite.
| MLB | NHL | NBA | NFL | CFB | CBB | |
| AvgPre-PlayoffRank | 3.8 | 5 | 2 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 5.4 |
College basketball is the leader, but it’s not a significant lead. The NBA, again, lags far behind, but the other four leagues are within reach of college basketball’s madness. In addition, college basketball’s chaos comes in waves. In my ten-year sample size (2009-18), college basketball was behind only the NBA in times when the playoff favorite won.
| MLB | NHL | NBA | NFL | CFB | CBB | |
| Playoff Favorite Championships | 4 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
March Madness is an incredible sporting event with tons of great basketball, but all the upsets are window dressing for a playoff system that isn’t the bold outlier of madness it appears to be. Instead, it’s more unpredictable than the status quo and a refreshing breath of air from the NBA, but it’s not an agent of chaos. March is mad, but once the games turn to April, it becomes just another playoff.