Keeping Talking Heads Honest - 2012 NCAAs Edition

Every year the talking heads point to conference W-L records in the NCAAs to determine which conferences are under-performing or over-performing. Gross win totals for a conference are all well and good, but if you're talking relative to expectations, which is inferred by under- or over-performance then most of these folks fail to take into account expectations in said analysis.

Under the fair assumption that seeds were appropriate here is how conferences which have at least one projected first second round winner OR at least two bids are expected to perform during the second round (sorted by number of bids, then by number of wins):

BE  Total	(6-3)
B1G  Total	(5-1)
B12  Total	(5-1)
ACC  Total	(3-2)
MWC  Total	(3-1)
SEC  Total	(3-1)
A10  Total	(1-3)
WCC  Total	(2-1)
MVC  Total	(2-0)
CUSA  Total	(1-1)
P12  Total	(0-2)
OVC  Total	(1-0)

So there you have it. On Thursday there were just 2 upsets out of 16 games. The PAC12 had the humiliating expectation of having both of their teams losing in the first round, but Colorado defied the odds and defeated a pretty pathetic looking UNLV team.  For the other Thursday upset Shaka Smart did it again and took his 12 seeded VCU squad and took down pre-tourney mid major darling Wichita St out of the MVC. 


What will Friday have in store?  We hope for more upsets because Thursday was a snooze fest.  We'll give a recap after the first round results to discuss which conferences are over- and under-performing.