Well, I was curious to see the parity demonstrated this tournament and decided to do some number crunching to find some averages from each round and each region. I simply averaged the scores from each round and then combined all the rounds together to get a final average throughout the course of the tournament so far. Obviously there is still one game left, but I really wanted to do it now.
First, I found the average point spread from the seeding matchups. I didn't calculate the play-in games (technically first round) just because I like this format better. I then put a win-loss ratio next to the spread average which is respective to the order of the seeds I listed. From then on I calculated it be region and found a total average for all of them, all the way up to the Final Four. Unfortunately, I don't have any stats like this from prior tournaments and I don't think any exist, so I don't really have anything to compare it to in order to make a real conclusion but I'll try just using general knowledge.
(1) (16) : 28.25 points : 4-0
(2) (15) : 18.5 points : 4-0
(3) (14) : 19 points : 4-0
(4) (13) : 5.25 points : 3-1
(5) (12) : 4.5 points : 3-1
(6) (11) : 12 points : 1-3
(7) (10) : 3.5 points : 3-1
(8) (9) : 11.75 points : 3-1
Average Spread : 12.8 points
As you can see, the closest matchups were the (7) (10), (5) (12), and (4) (13) battles by long shots. In the (6) (11) games, the (11) won 3 of the 4.
3rd Round
East : 9 points : (11) over (3)
West : 5.25 points : (5) over (4)
Southwest : 15.75 points : (11) over (3) & (10) over (2)
Southeast : 9 points : (8) over (1)
Average Spread : 9.75
The point spread dropped here, as expected in every progressing round, since the cream is rising to the top so the games will be tighter. Noted are some upsets, seeding-wise.
Sweet 16
East : 10 points : (4) over (1)
West : 11.5 points : (5) over (1) & (3) over (2)
Southwest : 10.5 points : (11) over (10)
Southeast : 8 points : (8) over (4)
Average Spread : 10 points
The point spread rose .25, so a 1 point total difference. Nothing significant.
Elite Eight
East : 7 points : (4) over (2)
West : 2 points
Southwest : 10 points : (11) over (1)
Southeast : 3 points : (8) over (2)
Average Spread : 5.5 points
Spread dropped a solid amount to a 2-possession game average. In this round 3 of the 4 lower seeds won, and the only higher seed that did was a (3) over (5) by 2 points.
Final Four
East vs West : 1 point
Southwest vs Southeast : 8 points
Average spread : 4.5 points
Spread dropped. Both higher seeds won.
Tournament Average : 9.23 points
Conclusion : The average spread was single digits. I feel as though that is pretty significant when discussing parity. Even given the almost 30points average the (1) seeds had on (16), the rest of the field played tightly enough to yield this result. I feel as though winning by 13+ would be considered a blowout, but the average for this was obviously below that. This shows that most of the games were close and intense and probably could've gone the other way very easily. All I can really say this stat shows is that this tournament produced a lot of nail-biting games and the fans were usually on the edge of their seats, whether it be a lower seed taking down a power house or a higher seed squeaking out a victory over a lower seed. Now, I hope my math is right on these since it's 5AM but I do think they're all correct. So my conclusion is that the games, on average, were not blowouts and they were damn close. This isn't even taking into account things like (1) Duke beating (8) Michigan by 2 points and (11) VCU beating (3) Purdue by 18 and (1) Kansas by 10. The parity is even closer than it seems because some of these large point differences I calculated were by lower seeds slaughtering higher seeds and higher seeds barely beating lower seeds. It wasn't always the higher seeds adding big numbers to the spread. A good deal of the time it was actually the lower seed while the higher narrowly won.
The Southwest 3rd Round is a prime example of this. The average spread is 15.75 points and I noted the (11) beat the (3) and the (10) beat the (2). I don't want people assuming these were close games and it was the other two games in the round that helped boost the numbers. The (10) and (11) won by 14 and 18 points, respectively. These teams were clearly better than their favored counterparts.
I actually just did one more stat check for fun. Here is a round-by-round breakdown of how the lower seeds performed in the only stat that matters is. Winning.
2nd Round : 7/32 lower seeds won
3rd Round : 6/16
Sweet 16 : 5/8
Elite Eight : 3/4
Final Four : 0/2
It's been a fun tournament and that's all I got for now. I'll be watching Monday and I'll be back afterwards.
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