INFOGRAPHIC: Which States Play the Best in March.

In a bit of a departure from tradition, I went a little more serious sports analysis with this post. Don't worry, something goofy is coming up shortly. Keep your eyes peeled. I was interested to see which states, not teams, were the best during the second best sports month of the year. The above graphic represents total wins, not including this year. The usual suspects are all there. I wasn't really surprised by any of them with the exception of Pennsylvania. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Philadelphia alone has about six schools that play Division 1 basketball. And they get to claim Pitt and Penn State. I was also kind of surprised that North Carolina won more games than California, especially by such a big margin. North Carolina has the Dukes and UNC's of the world, but I'd expect California's thousands of little schools to accumulate enough wins to back up that John Wooden guy and claim the crown. Live and learn, I guess.

Championships are the real measure of success, though, so I had to throw a graphic together to represent the excellence of the Conference of Champions (UCLA). The same characters were back again, so I guess we know where college basketball royalty is in this country. If we didn't already. You might not have been paying too much attention. It's a long season. In case you were wondering, the four teams tied with three ships are Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, and Kansas. No real surprises there either. I guess the hype machine is finally right about something.

I collected a lot more data that I decided not to turn into infographics as well, mostly because they're a lot of work. Alaska and Maine are the only states to never put a team in the tournament, which makes sense because Alaska has no Division One teams and who plays basketball in Maine? The University of Alaska - Anchorage does have a strong D-II squad if memory serves. But that was about 15 years ago, so who knows these days. Michigan has the best winning percentage, and the top of that list is occupied by the usual suspects as well, except for Nevada and New Hampshire. Nevada at least won a championship with UNLV and Jerry Tarkanian, but New Hampshire's only played 17 games in their history. That really should take them out of the top ten, but New Hampshire doesn't get much love in the sports world and I've been watching a lot of West Wing, so congrats Jed, your boys are still on there.

Population wise, the District of Columbia is most efficient. Not really fair, because they aren't an actual state, but props nonetheless. Residents of our nation's capital can share each win with 12.034 of their closest friends, while Minnesotans can share their whopping seven wins with 757,704 people. They're nice, though. They'll share well.



I hope you enjoyed this state centered look at March Madness. I wouldn't really consider myself a federalist, but for today, I'm all about state's rights. Check back throughout the month for more coverage of the greatest excuse to put off work this side of fantasy football.