Duke, Lehigh Drive Top March Madness Social Buzz

The first weekend of the 2012 NCAA tournament lived up to sports fans’ expectations. There were close games, blowouts, and everything in between. We also saw big name favorites live up to the hype and deliver commanding performances.

But of course, what does everybody want to see?

Yes, there were a few notable upsets – the two most shocking happening when a couple of #15 seeds knocked off a couple of powerhouse #2 seeds. It was the first time in history that two #15s were victorious in one tournament. And as you would expect, those two games sent social media sites like Twitter and Facebook on fire with comments – especially when Lehigh defeated the mighty Dukies.

Social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs tracked social media comments across all the games over the weekend (Thursday – Sunday). According to their research, 2.46 million comments were made, making an average of 49,000 comments per game. And the winner, the most buzzed-about game of the 48, was Lehigh and Duke:

As you can see, it wasn’t even that close. By the word cloud provided, you can kind of figure out why that game drew such a huge response: bracket busting. Plus, the game did involve Duke losing, which tends to please about 95% of the country.

The other big upset, Norfolk State topping Missouri was also popular, drawing 158,000 comments. Purdue vs. Kansas probably grabbed the #2 spot because it was just a spectacular game. The games the came in 4th and 5th according to social media buzz, UK vs. Iowa State and Creighton vs. UNC both had dominating performances from the top seeds.