March Madness 2.0

As discussed in my last Blog it is March, with March comes pollen, warmer weather, and college basketball. The time for March Madness has come and is now in full force. As we continue to push through the muck of a crazy tournament, we can begin to see the social media implications of such a large sporting event such as March Madness.

For those of you who did not read last week's blog, I spoke about the chances of there being upsets in this year's tournament and the social media implications that go along with those upsets. We looked at statistics from the 2013, a season with highly noted upsets, and how twitter was effected. Today, we will look at the social implications of this years upsets. A year that had as big, if not bigger, more suprising upsets than even the 2013 season.

Lets begin by looking at the matchup between Middle Tennessee State (15 Seed) and  Michigan State (2 Seed). This outlook should be prefaced by saying that Michigan State was one of the best teams in the country all year, with one of the best players in the country in Denzel Valentine. They had been considered by most to have been snubbed out of a one seed, and were actually picked to win the championship by 22.1% of brackets. So to say this was a Titanic of an upset is an understatement. This was one of the largest upsets of all time! But it wasn't the only upset of the weekend, 12 teams with a lower seeding beat their opponent just in the round of 32. With Baylor (5), West Virginia (3), Purdue (5), California (4), and Michigan State (2) all losing to teams that in theory had no chance of beating them. But that is what makes this time of year so fun, not knowing when and how someone will win or lose.

Though the stats are not yet out on the twitter buzz of all of the upsets this year, one can look at simple twitter reactions, and conclude that the numbers should be huge. The "crying Jordan" face covered Twitter after Michigan State's epic upset. Celebrities, basketball stars, and the Average Joe all took to twitter to share their thoughts on the game, much of which were in complete dismay.

This years tournament has been as crazy as ever, and its not close to over. Full of last second wins, epic meltdowns, and crazy upsets. This tournament has been one that will not easily be forgotten, and I'm sure that when the statistics come out that it will have huge social media implications. For know we must speculate, but with growing buzz around the tournament, and as big of upsets as ever, this years Twitter reaction numbers will be huge.