why are there so many upsets in the ncaa tournament?

No doubt if you've been paying attention to the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, you've seen your share of upsets.  At the time of this blog post, the biggest upset was Morehead State (13 seed) defeating Louisville (4 seed).

Morehead State players celebrating victory over Louisville

In the 2010-11 college basketball season, there were 346 men's division 1 basketball programs in 32 conferences.  The glory of the NCAA Tournament is when a team like Morehead State from the Ohio Valley Conference matches up against Louisville of the mighty Big East Conference.

 I didn't check, but it is very unlikely these teams played during the regular season, simply because they play different competition during the season.

Louisville plays against national powers such as Connecticut and Syracuse, while Morehead State plods along against Murray State, Tennessee Tech, and others.  While Morehead State finished with a record of 24-9, we really don't know how good they are.  Are the teams they beat any good?  Did they simply beat up on soft competition?  They don't have many common opponents with Louisville, so it is really tough to tell how good they really are, until the match up.

These types of small conference/big conference match ups is what makes the NCAA Tournament so enjoyable to watch.