They're the most interesting part of Selection Sunday. They're the most fun part of filling out a bracket. And they're by far the most intriguing part of watching the NCAA Tournament every year.

Could I be talking about anything other than upsets?

There are a lot of methods for picking NCAA Tournament upsets -- including efficiency metrics, mascots, and picking against rival teams you can't stand. But this is where college basketball analytics can really shine -- peeling away the preconceived notions associated with where a team is seeded and looking at the predictive elements of how these teams might play in their given matchup versus specific opponents.

Let's turn to our nERD metric -- which is the amount of points a team would be expected to beat an average team by on a neutral court -- to look at six first-round matchups where the data points to more interesting games than the seedings might lead you to believe.

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