What is an upset?
Webster’s defines upset as “emotionally disturbed or agitated”. Wait, wrong word. Okay, we don’t need no stinkin’ dictionary-especially not in March-to tell us what, in sports, an upset is.
It’s easy. An upset is when the team that isn’t supposed to win a game does. But who decides who’s supposed to win the game? The media? The fans? Las Vegas?
The most recent Rose Bowl, which was this year’s college football national championship game, pitted USC against Texas. Texas won-in an upset. Sort of. I still don’t see why the outcome of that game should have surprised anyone. Yes, USC had some championship history over the last few years, but if you looked at the numbers and the relative dominance of each team for just that season-which was the period we were finding a champion for, after all-it’s hard to say Texas wasn’t at least as good. O,r more accurately, it’s tough to say USC was really as good as Texas.
Not to turn into Hines Ward here, but calling Texas’ win an upset, in a way, diminishes the dominant regular season they put together. Sometimes upsets tell us we didn’t know the teams as well we thought. But sometimes, what we call upsets don’t tell us anything at all.
When the Colts lose in the playoffs-theoretically speaking, of course-is it really an upset? Doesn’t being good at offense and defense make Colts’ opponents generally more well-rounded and, therefore, better football teams? You wouldn’t call a better team winning an upset, so have the Colts ever been upset in the playoffs? I don’t the Colts are good enough to be upset (unless my Broncos ever beat them when it counts-that would be an upset).
Every sports fans claims to root for upsets, but most fans downplay the victory later if it wasn’t easy to see it coming. I still remember when a friend of mine told me the day after the Broncos upset the Packers in Super Bowl XXXII that if the Super Bowl had been a seven-game series-instead of just one game-that the Packers would have won. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he had a point, but I have no idea what it was. Of course, football takes such a toll on the players that a long series is completely impractical. But like the Rose Bowl, that game didn’t feel like an upset. The Broncos had just a 12-4 record to Green Bay’s 13-3, but that’s hardly conclusive, considering how close some of the losses had been. The AFC had lost like 13 Super Bowls in a row, but that was hardly relevant.
Pointless conference comparisons, of course, bring us back to this month’s basketball tournament. March Madness, of course, is all about upsets, isn’t it? But then, what is an upset in March? Commentators and bloggers and real sportswriters will often say after a lower-seeded team’s victory that the victor showed they belonged in the tournament, or they were the better team. If they’re really the better team, then the game wasn’t much of an upset, was it? Besides, who’s to say that the selection committee is infallible and that the seeds are all perfect indicators of how good teams actually are anyway?
Even worse, of course, are the absurdly retarded conference-based comparisons. Let’s say, for example, that a team from the much-maligned Missouri Valley Conference beat a team from the mathematically toughest conference, the Big “Ten”. Well, that proves it-small schools have caught up with the big schools and we have achieved parity. Yet is there any reason to think that one single team from the MVC can’t be better than one single team from the Big Ten? Especially if they have to be better for one game?
Do upsets prove that the lower-seeded team is better? Does it say something about heart, effort, and work ethic? Or is it just part of the randomness you get when you extract results from such small sample sizes? Or, in other words, does Japan actually have the world’s best baseball team?
I thought the World Baseball Classic turned out pretty well. While I only saw some parts of some games, it was exciting and had great atmosphere-just like college basketball. But it’s hard to fault the United States team-which wasn’t necessarily the most loaded roster in the tournament anyway-for not being immediately dominant in such a short stretch of games. Watch who’s leading each division eight games into the major league baseball season this year and see how many of them actually wind up winning their divisions. Baseball especially seems to need long series to showcase true ability.
Of course, no one thinks a single-elimination tournament is the best way to determine a “true” basketball champion-the team that is, on some fundamental level, actually the best. That takes nothing away from the tournament, because a huge part of its appeal is that it’s so wide open. But if upsets are just bad teams beating good ones-well, what’s so great about that?
Webster’s defines upset as “emotionally disturbed or agitated”. Wait, wrong word. Okay, we don’t need no stinkin’ dictionary-especially not in March-to tell us what, in sports, an upset is.
It’s easy. An upset is when the team that isn’t supposed to win a game does. But who decides who’s supposed to win the game? The media? The fans? Las Vegas?
The most recent Rose Bowl, which was this year’s college football national championship game, pitted USC against Texas. Texas won-in an upset. Sort of. I still don’t see why the outcome of that game should have surprised anyone. Yes, USC had some championship history over the last few years, but if you looked at the numbers and the relative dominance of each team for just that season-which was the period we were finding a champion for, after all-it’s hard to say Texas wasn’t at least as good. O,r more accurately, it’s tough to say USC was really as good as Texas.
Not to turn into Hines Ward here, but calling Texas’ win an upset, in a way, diminishes the dominant regular season they put together. Sometimes upsets tell us we didn’t know the teams as well we thought. But sometimes, what we call upsets don’t tell us anything at all.
When the Colts lose in the playoffs-theoretically speaking, of course-is it really an upset? Doesn’t being good at offense and defense make Colts’ opponents generally more well-rounded and, therefore, better football teams? You wouldn’t call a better team winning an upset, so have the Colts ever been upset in the playoffs? I don’t the Colts are good enough to be upset (unless my Broncos ever beat them when it counts-that would be an upset).
Every sports fans claims to root for upsets, but most fans downplay the victory later if it wasn’t easy to see it coming. I still remember when a friend of mine told me the day after the Broncos upset the Packers in Super Bowl XXXII that if the Super Bowl had been a seven-game series-instead of just one game-that the Packers would have won. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he had a point, but I have no idea what it was. Of course, football takes such a toll on the players that a long series is completely impractical. But like the Rose Bowl, that game didn’t feel like an upset. The Broncos had just a 12-4 record to Green Bay’s 13-3, but that’s hardly conclusive, considering how close some of the losses had been. The AFC had lost like 13 Super Bowls in a row, but that was hardly relevant.
Pointless conference comparisons, of course, bring us back to this month’s basketball tournament. March Madness, of course, is all about upsets, isn’t it? But then, what is an upset in March? Commentators and bloggers and real sportswriters will often say after a lower-seeded team’s victory that the victor showed they belonged in the tournament, or they were the better team. If they’re really the better team, then the game wasn’t much of an upset, was it? Besides, who’s to say that the selection committee is infallible and that the seeds are all perfect indicators of how good teams actually are anyway?
Even worse, of course, are the absurdly retarded conference-based comparisons. Let’s say, for example, that a team from the much-maligned Missouri Valley Conference beat a team from the mathematically toughest conference, the Big “Ten”. Well, that proves it-small schools have caught up with the big schools and we have achieved parity. Yet is there any reason to think that one single team from the MVC can’t be better than one single team from the Big Ten? Especially if they have to be better for one game?
Do upsets prove that the lower-seeded team is better? Does it say something about heart, effort, and work ethic? Or is it just part of the randomness you get when you extract results from such small sample sizes? Or, in other words, does Japan actually have the world’s best baseball team?
I thought the World Baseball Classic turned out pretty well. While I only saw some parts of some games, it was exciting and had great atmosphere-just like college basketball. But it’s hard to fault the United States team-which wasn’t necessarily the most loaded roster in the tournament anyway-for not being immediately dominant in such a short stretch of games. Watch who’s leading each division eight games into the major league baseball season this year and see how many of them actually wind up winning their divisions. Baseball especially seems to need long series to showcase true ability.
Of course, no one thinks a single-elimination tournament is the best way to determine a “true” basketball champion-the team that is, on some fundamental level, actually the best. That takes nothing away from the tournament, because a huge part of its appeal is that it’s so wide open. But if upsets are just bad teams beating good ones-well, what’s so great about that?
Comments
I think my favorite actual upset was probably the Patriots over the Rams in the Super Bowl at the start of 2002. We look back now and appreciate how good the Patriots became, but Brady was in his first year as a starter-first partial year-and their offense really had no weapons. Meanwhile the Rams had guys like Faulk and Holt and Bruce and Warner, all of whom looked like close to Hall of Fame-level talents at the time. And the Patriots played a physical, fearless game and almost won going away. Unlike some teams, they didn't fall apart when the Rams started to mount a comeback. Still one of my favorite games I've ever witnessed.
re: broncos v. packers.
i thought we finished that year 10-6 mike, and were the wild card team, isn't that right? it was the next year when we were 14-2...
factoring in that they were the defending champs, it makes sense that we were the underdog.
i don't agree with that guy who said if we played a series we would've lost.
had it been a series, TD wouldn't have had a migraine, and would've ran for copious amounts of yardage, instead of the humble 142-yd effort he had.
i bet brett favre wished he could've gone out like elway... in a twirling helicoptor of glory...
Interesting comments (Pulse the Broncos were 13-3) A little hard to follow but okay...
I truly believe an upset is a team overcoming a truly superior team (superior is stronger, tougher, and more skilled) generally through a letdown heart or coaching genious.
One of my favorite upsets was that of Kansas St. over Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship-Ok had every advantage of talent (ex. Darren Sproles), size and depth, but Kansas St. just out worked played and coached Ok to a win 35-7
I think it is difficult to call an upset an upset in college basketball because of the conference play which distorts the talent of players and teams and does a poor job seeding its tournament.
I don't understand how teams are picked-is it on having a good season or playing for a chance to win the title. Air Force, Monmouth good seasons. Cincinnati, FSU potential to win tournament. In this sense maybe the madness truly is madness.
Good point about Texas-they were underestimated-again, I called the Rose Bowl more than 4 months in advance on Sept. 10 2004.
WBC: More exciting than regular baseball, players played and cared. It continued my frustration in National team-again and again our national team have endless opportunities to do well but they don't. Basketball got Bronze, Hockey didn't medal and only won one game but seem to keep advancing, baseball only had to beat Mexico and Japan wouldn't have even medaled, the U.S. is "forgetting what[international competition is] all about: giving out medals of beautiful gold, so-so silver and shameful bronze."
http://www.denverbroncos.com/page.php?id=410
They were the wild-card, but the Chiefs had home-field throughout at 13-3, and we had the second-best record in the conference, so we weren't really a traditional wildcard, if that makes any sense.
Yes, it makes sense that we were the underdog in the Super Bowl, but if I recall the Packers were favored heavily. My point is I wasn't particularly surprised by the win, but then I'm a rabid Broncos fan.
David, on the Texas thing: my gosh, get over yourself.
Next, Cincinnati and FSU may have tournament-winning potential in some alternate universe, but major conference teams have no place whining on missing out on the NCAA tourney. You want in, win your conference. If you can't win your conference, how can you be the best team in the country anyway? And if you can win the national tourney but not your conference tourney, doesn't that just prove it's all a fluke anyway-so who cares who makes it in?
That Oklahoma loss to K-State was great, mostly because Oklahoma had been overrated so much all season-the whole best-team ever argument. Turned out to be a tad premature. I love it when that happens. A great pick, David.