Here’s some bad news for the people in your life who join the college basketball season during the second week of March, pick the top seeds to win almost every game and somehow walk away with office pool bragging rights: Most of 2017–18’s best teams have been exceptionally bad at sticking to the script. After a regular season that featured top-five upsets on a weekly basis and left almost every team with at least one truly head-scratching loss, chalk would qualify as a surprise outcome in this year’s NCAA tournament.
The three days between Selection Sunday and Round 1 coincide with a swell of public momentum in favor of the No.