Within one week, two #1 seeds, the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Bruins, were ousted from their respective playoffs in the first round. Only a few months ago, #1 Purdue was beaten by Farleigh Dickinson in the round of 64 for only the second time in NCAA history.

Is the rise of the ultimate underdog a good thing for sports? I could care less about the betting public and the millions won or lost. When #1 seeds lose immediately, the field opens up for everyone else. Other teams get second chances which make for great stories but does the sport benefit. In professional sports, seeding is purely objective based solely on wins. Despite all of the computers and algorithms, tournament seeding isn’t based on objective standards. More often than not the rankings are impacted by how teams finish the season and that’s all right, but at least implicitly, voters allocate more significance to different games and results. It’s called the human factor.

While there may have been little to distinguish the Mets, Braves and Phillies last (regular) season, the Mets and Braves essentially won the NL East with 100-win seasons. The Phillies were the sixth playoff seed but advanced to the World Series after beating St. Louis in the wildcard round, the Braves in the NLDS, and the Padres in the NLCS.

With longer 5 and 7 game series, people figure the better team wins out whereas most NCAA fans usually justify a major upset in the tournament as a one in ten occurrence.

I’m not sure which was the surer thing, the Bucks winning the NBA title this year or the Bruins (who won the most regular season games in NHL history) winning the Stanley Cup.