Facebook fun: Minnesota most often mentioned as tourney Cinderella, Duke takes ‘most hyped’ tag

Which low seed is most likely to challenge the midnight hour once the NCAA tournament kicks off on Thursday? If storybook references on Facebook are any indication, the University of Minnesota is the team most likely to be considered this year's "Cinderella" team. The No. 11 seed in the South bracket is the team most often mentioned as the famous storybook character in status updates this week according to a data analysis of our good friends at the social media network. That seems to jive with popular sentiment elsewhere as 42.5 percent of entries in the Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Tourney Pick'em have the Golden Gophers getting past UCLA in the first round and 7.5 percent has them as a Sweet 16 entry. Both are the highest percentages of any double-digit seed. The optimism, however, only goes so far as Minnesota is only mentioned as a Final Four participant and winner on 0.1 percent of Yahoo! brackets.

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Additionally, the Facebook team also found that Duke is the "most hyped" team as it has been the most mentioned team this week and Michigan wins the title as most improved since its number of mentions have increased the most during its stellar season.

The Facebook team also went through the bracket and predicted winners based on the number of mentions each school has received. Duke, of course, wins the title, but sheer popularity also has seventh-seeded Notre Dame reaching the Final Four from the West.

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How would the entire bracket play out if the Big Dance were just a big popularity contest? Check out the excellent graphic from Facebook below:

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