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.)

During the season in this space, we often like to begin with a bit of pop culture or history or some other random bit of nonsense unrelated to college basketball. So, uh, is it OK if we just do that for the entirety of this final installment?

Because we’re going to be totally transparent here. For the first time in six years of making mock brackets for The Athletic, we go into Selection Sunday with no earthly idea of what the selection committee is going to do. Oh, sure, there are always small surprises, but for the most part, the field is obvious except for maybe one slot.

Not this year. After one of the wildest Championship Week Saturdays we can remember, which included two power-conference bid thieves and a still-hard-to-believe outcome in the American, we find ourselves utterly confused by the bubble. And whether North Carolina will hold on to that final No. 1 seed or if surging Iowa State will take it. At least we’re not alone:

Been doing this since 2006. It’s never been this hard for the committee, not only because of how close so many of these teams are, but because of the…

(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.)

Bracket Watch HQ is also home to a 5-year-old, who has recently discovered a new favorite song. Which means we’ve been forced to listen to it on an endless Spotify loop:

Yes, for those of you without children or an aversion to cartoons, that’s Reel 2 Real’s relentlessly dumb but inescapably catchy 1993 hit “I Like to Move It,” remade for the “Madagascar” movie franchise. You’re welcome for the earworm.

It also reminds us that things are always changing and growing in unexpected ways. Take the NCAA Tournament, for example (segue alert!). Dana O’Neil reported this week that tournament expansion remains a very likely outcome, but the field would only grow by a modest four to eight teams. Perhaps we’ve reached the acceptance stage of our grief, but we can move forward with a few more play-in games if that’s what it takes to keep the barbarians at the gate.

It’s also time for teams to make their moves in our latest mock bracket, now just nine days from Selection Sunday. Conference tournaments have begun, and the power conferences get going with their postseasons next…