Can we expect more upsets in the NCAA tournament going forward?

On the latest Yahoo Sports College Podcast, Dan Wetzel, Pete Thamel and SI's Pat Forde recap the wildest first weekend in NCAA tournament history and ask if the FBI investigation into blue-blood recruiting played a role. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video transcript

[CHEERING]

DAN WETZEL: Is this a one time thing? Is this just variable? Is this COVID? Is this the start of a trend? Is the fact the transfer portal allows kind of these mid-level teams to plug gaps? Is it the analytics and the style of play? I'm just thinking of Alabama. Or-- and I want to throw this out there-- is this the fallout, in part, from the FBI investigation, which could-- which neutered, at least for the time being, the power of shoe companies-- namely Adidas and Nike-- to stock certain teams with lots and lots of talent?

PAT FORDE: Love that theory. And yes, I do think there is a correlation to a degree. I don't think there's any doubt. I mean, Kansas is the clear example just in terms of, yeah, that team--

[LAUGHS]

I mean, there is not the usual level of talent. And Bill Self has said, gosh, we're having trouble recruiting with this NCAA investigation hanging over our heads. Well, darn the luck, Bill. Duke and Kentucky, the Nike flagships, are, you know, nowhere near where they usually are. You got the guys that went G League, you know, that would have been freshman. You've taken those off the top. You've dispersed a little bit more of the talent and I think that it's just a more level playing field.

And, once again, we're seeing veteran teams excelling that have had players together for, you know-- like, the Baylor nucleus has been together for three years. You know, there's just-- continuity and experience are mattering a lot, you know? And again, I think this will be the wave of the future-- or, you know, the continued wave-- is that get old, stay old is the strategy and that strategy continues to work. I mean, if you look around, other than Mobley and Jalen Suggs-- and Suggs is part of a veteran team-- you know, this is not a bunch of freshmen phenoms leading their teams anywhere here.

PETE THAMEL: The world is flatter now than it used to be. I remember when Hampton beat Iowa State. I actually was in a sports bar in Dayton when that happened. Syracuse was in the-- I was covering Syracuse for the "Post Standard" at the time. And it was such a seminal moment. In 2001, the fourth in, what ended up being essentially 20 years, 15 to beat a two. Richmond beat Syracuse in '91, Steve Nash's Santa Clara beat Arizona in '93, Fang Mitchell's Coppin State beat South Carolina in '97, and '01.

So those upsets were kind of moonshots in a way. Like, they were, like, wow. They were axis-shifting. Now, they're still a very big deal, but if you look back at the last nine tournaments, we've had, let's just say, six axis-shifting upsets in 10 years and there had been four in the previous 20. So, again, I'm not saying we should start to expect these, but all these different forces that we're seeing and feeling now. UMBC won because they had a kid named Jairus Lyles who was, like, a high major guy who transferred four times and he was a really good player.

And I remember calling some America East coaches that night about that upset, because they'd obviously played UMBC, and they were like, look, they had the best player on the floor.

DAN WETZEL: Yeah.

PAT FORDE: Yeah.

PETE THAMEL: Virginia had some very good players, but, like, that night he was the best player on the floor. That opportunity now happens because of the churn of transfers and the way the world works. So this is the, by definition, most upset-laden first weekend of the NCAA tournament and I think this will be-- continue to be matched and in the neighborhood of, like, I just think the chalky tournaments will become the surprise from here on in. It's just the way the world is shifting. There's more players, there's more access to players, there's film. Like, we've all written these trend stories over the years of why the rhythms of the game are changing and they're all fairly-- they're all fairly obvious. But I really did think now that, like, the 15-2 is no longer, like, a fall-off-your-couch upset.