Back in April, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament came to its conclusion with the No. 1 seed Kansas Jayhawks defeating the No. 8 seed North Carolina Tar Heels to claim the 2022 national title. The Jayhawks had to beat six other teams over three weekends to earn the right to cut down the nets, as has every NCAA champion since the mid-1980s.
But, not all paths in the NCAA Tournament are equally difficult. The entire structure of the tournament is based on the idea that the better teams (i.e. higher seeds) are given the easiest draw.