Before 2012, 2-seeds went 10 straight years without losing in the First Round. In the ten tournaments since that streak, we’ve seen six 2-seeds drop their first game. Is this the start of a new trend? Or a weird statistical anomaly? Who knows? Let’s see what happens this year!
Overall Performance
- 138 (of 148) advanced to the Second Round
- 93 went on to the Sweet 16
- 67 reached the Elite 8
- 31 reached the Final 4
- 13 made the championship game
- 5 won the tournament
Performance Over the Last 10 Years
- 34 (of 40) advanced to the Second Round
- 23 went on to the Sweet 16
- 17 reached the Elite 8
- 9 reached the Final 4
- 2 made it to the championship game, but only one of them won it
Bracket Performance History and Advice
- First Round: Only 10 (out of 148) 2-seeds have lost in the First Round. Interestingly, 6 of those upsets happened within the last 10 tournaments. It’s still probably too rare of an occurrence to take the risk of picking an upset here.
- Second Round: 93% of 2’s reach the Second Round. Only about 2/3 of them advance further.
- Sweet 16: 63% of 2’s reach this round. There have only been two tournaments where none of the 2-seeds advanced past the Sweet 16.
- Elite 8: 45% of 2’s reach this round.
- Final 4: 21% of 2’s reach this round. 31 2-seeds have reached the Final 4, and 13 wound up advancing to the Final.
- Final: Of the 13 2-seeds to reach the Final, 5 of them won.
Record in the Second Round
- vs 7-seeds: 59-26
- vs 10-seeds: 34-19
Feats of Strength
- 2016 Villanova was the last team to win the tournament as a 2-seed.
- The previous 2-seed winner was Connecticut, 12 years earlier, in 2004.
- All four 2-seeds advanced to the Elite 8 twice:
- 1995 – Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Arkansas
- 1996 – Georgetown, Wake Forest, Cincinnati, and Kansas