March Madness Intermission: Too Fast, Too Furious

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming this week to help you make your March Madness picks. We'll return to our YPP and APR football recaps next week. 

Diehards and casual fans alike use a wide range of tools when deciding which first-round upsets to pick. Team quality, matchups, historical trends, travel distance, team colors, mascots, and countless other variables all get considered. However, one statistic that I believe is often overlooked is tempo.

So what exactly is tempo? Simply put, it’s how fast a team plays. One might assume that underdogs with a slower tempo would be more likely to pull off a first-round upset. A slower pace means fewer possessions, which should lead to greater variance—something that tends to favor the underdog. In contrast, a faster tempo creates more possessions, which should reduce variance and benefit the favorite.

But does this theory actually play out in the real world? To answer that question, I looked at all teams seeded 10-14 from the past ten NCAA tournaments (2015-2025) and recorded their Adjusted Tempo (possessions per 40 minutes adjusted for opponent) from KenPom. I did not include the 15 and 16 seeds because as a rule of thumb, you should not be picking those teams to advance in your bracket. I put those teams into separate buckets based on their Adjusted Tempo and calculated the first round winning percentage for each group. The results are below. 

Our theory appears to hold true in practice. Teams seeded 10-14 that played at an Adjusted Tempo of 63.0 possessions or lower won just under half their first round games. Meanwhile, teams seeded 10-14 that played at an Adjusted Tempo of 70.0 or higher won about 12% of their first round games. In fact, it has happened so infrequently over the past ten tournaments, it won't take too much time to list the four teams that have done it. 

Hawaii (13) over Cal (4) in 2016

Marshall (13) over Wichita State (4) in 2018

Buffalo (13) over Arizona (4) in 2018

New Mexico (10) over Marquette (7) in 2025

Sometimes knowing which upsets to not pick can help you win your NCAA Tournament pool. With that in mind, which teams seeded 10-14 in this year's tournament play at an Adjusted Tempo of 70.0 or higher? 

South Florida and Akron seem to be trendy first round upset picks. You may want to think twice about advancing those teams past their favored opponents.