To win your office's March Madness pool, you're going to have to predict those upsets.
Unfortunately, conventional wisdom is leading bettors astray.
"Find a good 12 seed, because they've won a game in 25 of the last 28 years," an analyst for ESPN said.
"Look at that 12-5 matchup. The 12 seed has won nine, the five has won 11 in the first round," a CBS analyst said.
"Pretty much every year a 12 seed beats a 5 seed. It's the most common upset there is," an analyst told CNN.
The problem is this advice only seems to look at the first round, when wins are worth just a point for most fans' brackets. The deeper your teams go, the more points you'll rack up.
Yes, No. 5 seeds have only won 59 percent of their first round matchups since 2005.
But even when No. 12 seeds win the first game, they don't usually go much further. Fifth-seeded teams, on the other hand, do.
Over the past 11 years, No. 12 seeds, on average, gained March Madness bettors less than a point. Meanwhile, the average fifth-seeded team has been worth over two points on average.
Instead, you might want to watch the 6-11 matchups.
Since 2005, 11 seeds have won more first round games than 12 seeds, and they've actually gained more points for bettors than No. 6 seeds. Simply put, history's shown they go a bit further, on average, in the tournament than No. 6 seeds.
Just don't tell your opponents this. Let them tear up their brackets later.
Statistics in this story are based on scoring the first (non-play-in) round as worth 1 point, the second round as worth 2, the third as worth 4, and so on.
This video includes clips from CBS, CNN and ESPN and images from Getty Images.
