If we look toward the past for answers, the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament's first day results can help us take educated guesses on which upsets could happen on the first day of March Madness 2011. We saw a few upsets:
No. 9 Wake Forest defeated No. 8 Texas, 81-80 (OT)
No. 9 Northern Iowa defeated No. 8 UNLV, 69-66
No. 10 St. Mary's defeated No. 7 Richmond, 80-71
No. 11 Washington defeated No. 6 Marquette, 80-78
No. 11 Old Dominion defeated No. 6 Notre Dame, 51-50
No. 13 Murray State defeated No. 4 Vanderbilt, 66-65
No. 14 Ohio defeated No. 3 Georgetown, 97-93
We also saw No. 5 Butler start its road to the National Championship game with a victory over the UTEP Miners on the first day of the tournament. So which games could we see upsets in during the 2011 tournament?
Well, we can probably count out No. 16 UNC-Asheville defeating No. 1 Pitt. There has never been a 16 seed upset over a 1 seed. I'd take the No. 13 Princeton Tigers over the No. 4 Kentucky Wildcats, the No. 11 Gonzaga Bulldogs over No. 6 St. John's and the No. 11 Missouri Tigers over the No. 6 Cincinnati Bearcats. Why? I like Ivy League school's, think St. John's got lucky in the Big East Tournament and will see fate turn around in them and that Missouri is legitimately a better team than Cincinnati.
That's three upset selections there, which is probably on the safe side. It may be hard to reach the seven last year's had.