Looking for the chalkiest region in the first round of the NCAA Tournament? Our model thinks it’s likely to be the East. Only two of six Bracket Breaker games have an upset chance of greater than 10 percent, and no team has more than a 28 percent chance of springing an upset.

Below is a game-by-game analysis of every first-round matchup with Bracket Breaker implications in the East. We’ve already examined the Midwest and the West and will break down the South on Wednesday and every potential second-round matchup. To qualify as a Bracket Breaker game, opponents need to be separated by at least five seeds (which is why we don’t cover the 8/9 or 7/10 games). Our analysis adjusts teams’ basic strengths according to how closely they statistically resemble favorites and underdogs from past tournaments and, where appropriate, by style matchups. We can’t tell you how to bet — that depends on how richly your pool rewards deep upsets and your tolerance for risk. But if you’re interested in how our model works, check out this piece.

And now, onto the upsets!

More Bracket Breakers: Men’s Top 10 Upsets | Midwest Region Preview | West Region Preview | Women’s Top 10 Upsets

Odds are from BetMGM. For more Underdogs, listen to Peter and Jordan’s podcast. For all our…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Just 72 hours ago in this space, we posited that Tennessee had taken over the final No. 1 seed from Arizona. Then on Saturday, the Volunteers lost at home to Kentucky. Arizona lost at USC. And North Carolina beat Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. So now what?

While it’s not Blind Resume Challenge time, take a look at these three with the names gone and decide which one deserves the No. 4 overall seed (numbers as of Sunday night).

That is … so close. Team A is Arizona, Team B is Tennessee and Team C is UNC. Missing from the chart is Arizona’s Quad 3 loss at Oregon State — the other two contenders don’t have a setback outside the first two quads. Throw in the Wildcats’ losses to Stanford and USC, and that convinces us that it’s going to be the Volunteers or Tar Heels on the top line. But which one?

It’s so tight that North Carolina’s nonconference home win over Tennessee might serve as the de facto tiebreaker….

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

In 1986, religious scholar James P. Carse published an influential book called “Finite and Infinite Games.” Finite games, in Carse’s definition, are those that have defined rules and declare winners and losers. The infinite game, on the other hand, is that which “changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game.” The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote an insightful piece in 2022 about how Major League Baseball’s pursuit of solving the finite game through analytics damaged the infinite game — i.e., creating an enjoyable experience for fans to watch.

There is no game quite as finite as the NCAA Tournament, where the hopes and dreams of a school and its fans can be crushed in a single-elimination, 40-minute contest. But as we await another incredible tournament here on the first day of March (huzzah!), we have to wonder: Who is looking out for the infinite game?

In a recent interview with ESPN, NCAA president Charlie Baker indicated that he’s open to the idea of expanding the tournament if it’s “done with care and…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Charles McClelland’s first vote as a member of the men’s NCAA Tournament selection committee was whether to cancel the 2020 event because of COVID-19. In his second year on the committee, much of his time was spent discussing protocols to play the tournament without fans in the Indiana bubble.

So now that McClelland is the 2024 selection committee chairman and has to lead the group in sorting out a chaotic season, he can put things in perspective.

“Debating bubble teams is so much better than saying, ‘If somebody catches COVID, will we allow that team to participate or not?’” said McClelland, who is also the SWAC commissioner. “We’re actually talking basketball now, which is what we all enjoy.”

The committee convened last week and talked a lot of basketball before releasing its initial top 16 seeds. “The only problem,” McClelland joked, “is that the teams then went out and played games.”

Nine of the top 16, including the No. 1 and No. 2 overall seeds Purdue and UConn, have lost since the reveal. But that’s the 2023-24 season in a nutshell. While the committee…