A major cause of the reduction of upsets is being completely overlooked — the adoption of the same analytics and focus on efficiency by almost all teams. Only 5-6 years ago, many of us still believed that defense wins championships and hadn’t yet realized that a three-pointer is so much more efficient than a midrange jumper. This led to top teams being inherently more vulnerable. If, as an underdog, you caught a top seed that was slower paced, defensive-minded, and short on shooting, you could beat them with a hot shooting night or a defensive scheme that baited them into taking inefficient shots. Now, the big dogs have optimized their style of play. The big dogs and the underdogs are playing the exact same brand of basketball, but the big dogs have much better players. Take these two Illinois teams as an example: 2020-2021 #1-seed Illinois (#8 ORtg KP) - #320 three-point rate (30.0%) - #54 OREB % (30.3) - Lost in second round to Loyola Chicago, making 4 threes and securing 5 OREBs 2025-2026 #3-seed Illinois (#2 ORtg KP) - #13 three-point rate (50.6%) - #3 OREB % (38.9) - Beat Penn in first round making 15 threes and securing 20 OREBs Coached by the same guy, their entire philosophy has shifted in five years and had made them much more immune to upsets. Other high majors have size and athletes to combat this and potentially turn the reliance on threes into a weakness. But mid-majors don’t. The talent gap has always been there, but now, rather than finding clever ways to compete, mid-majors are forced to try to beat the powerhouses at their own game.