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My interpretation is that down through usually #11 or so you are still including some at-large teams so we are talking about teams that are legitimately in the top-64.  Then once you run out of at-large teams you move to "tallest midgets" but the very best of those are still borderline legitimately good enough so down through the #12 seeds you are talking about REALLY tall tallest midgets.  Once you get beyond #12's, you get into progressively shorter "tallest midgets" that simply have no business playing in a NC tournament but they are included for money reasons but also for inclusion reasons to technically give every team a shot. 

The 12 and 13s are also generally the best AQs.  So while they might be bad, they might also be good, but just didn't have the resume to prove it.  Once you get down to the 15s and 16s it's teams that generally weren't even the best in the conference.  So we know they almost certainly are not good.  They just picked the right weekend to have a good weekend

Nah, once your team made an F4 the next year that became ancient history!  

Not that I WANT to correct you, but that was two years later. The next year was this:

Oops, my mistake, the F4 was one year after the #16 debacle and two years after becoming the first (and as of yet only) team to lose to a #13 or below in the second weekend.  

Honestly, from my perspective, losing to a #15 in the S16 is MUCH worse than losing to a #16 in the opening round.  I think getting upset in the opening round is at least partially a product of overlooking your opponent.  When you get to the second weekend there is no excuse for overlooking a team that already took out two pretty good teams just to get to where they are.  In this case, St. Peter's took out bluest-of-blue-bloods #2 seed Kentucky in the opener and a decent #7 seed Murray State in the second round.  

On a related note, I've long argued that the big drop in win % from #12's to #13's is more because #13 and below are REALLY bad than because #4 and above are REALLY good.  Some evidence for my theory:

If the drop was because the #1-4 seeds are so great, then the few #13's and below that do manage to win their opener should do better in the second round where they are matched against less great opponents.  By and large, they don't.  

#13's:

• .212 against #4's in the first round, 33-123
• .182 against #5/12 in the second round, 6-27
• .000 against #1/8/9 in the S16, 0-6 (1)

#14's:

• .147 against #3's in the first round, 23-133
• .087 against #6/11 in the second round, 2-21
• .000 against #2/7/10 in the S16, 0-2 (2)

#15's:

• .071 against #2 in the first round, 11-145
• .364 against #7/10 in the second round, 4-7
• .250 against #3/6/11 in the S16, 1-3 (3)
• .000 against #1/4/5/8/9/12 in the E8, 0-1 (4)

#16's:

• .013 against #1 in the first round, 2-154
• .000 against #9* in the second round, 0-2

* Both #16's to advance to the second round drew a #9 and lost to them in the second round.  


(1) In theory this game could be against a #16 but no #16 have gotten that far.  
(2) In theory this game could be against #15 but the only #15 to win one of these beat PU which was NOT a #14 and since no #14's have won and no other #15's have won we know that no #14's have ever played a #15 in the S16.  
(3) In theory this game could be against #14 but since we know that no #15 and no #15 has ever won other than against PU, it hasn't happened.  
(4) In theory this game could be against #13 or #16 but no #13 or #16 has ever made it this far.  

Only the #15's get better but, IMHO, that may be more of a sample-size issue than anything else.  The others do WORSE in the second round despite playing teams not nearly as good as the ones they knocked off in the first round to get there:

• #13's do WORSE against 5/12 than against #4.  
• #14's do WORSE against 6/11 than against #3.  
• #16's do WORSE against #9 than against #1.  

I had always assumed that eventually a #13 or below would win a second weekend game but my theory was that it would happen when two #13's and below happened to luck into each other in the second weekend such that one of them HAD to win.  Ie, two #14's and four #15's have made it to the second weekend and I just figured that if you did this enough times eventually you'd have a #15 knock of a #2 and a #7/10 and a #14 knock off a #3 and a #6/11 in the same region and then your S16 matchup that was "supposed to" be between #2 and #3 would instead be between #15 and #14.  One of them would have to win and then would get clobbered in the E8.  

Where I'll disagree is on the "looking past" a team though. I realize a portion of seeing a #15 take down Kentucky and then Murray State means you should treat them with respect as a dangerous team. However, I think Purdue already knowing that the bracket was busted and they didn't have to face the #1 seed in the E8, knowing they would be facing either the #4 or #8, teams seeded below them, had them looking ahead thinking about the Final Four when they should have been thinking about winning the damn Sweet Sixteen game.

That is fair.  It is possibly to overlook a team even after they've pulled a couple upsets because there *IS* still BB to be played after that game and these *ARE* kids.  They are naturally going to be tempted to see that red carpet invite to the F4 and . . .