Basketball analysts like to talk about a team’s experience as a deciding factor between winning and losing. But, as the WSJ’s Darren Everson notes, experience on the court is not nearly as significant as most people think.

Through the first 52 games of this year's tournament, the less-experienced team in each of the matchups (as measured by college-basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy, on his website kenpom.com) has won 29 times, or 56%. Remove the games in which there's an obvious talent mismatch—the round-of-64 games involving 1-3 seeds—and the younger teams still have won 55% of the time.

Second-seeded Notre Dame, which had an all-senior starting lineup, was overwhelmed in the third round by Florida State, a moderately experienced 10th-seed whose star, Chris Singleton, hardly played. Sixth-seeded St. John's, a team with 10 seniors, lost its opener by 15 to a relatively young Gonzaga side.

This is not to suggest that experience is somehow a detriment in the NCAA tournament. Common sense says that players who've gone through a variety of pressure-packed scenarios have an edge over those who haven't, to speak nothing of the advantage they hold from having additional years of coaching and physical development. Coaches whose teams are full of tournament-experienced players are convinced it gives them an edge.

"I do think that," said Butler coach Brad Stevens, who felt secure enough in his team's savvy that, while trailing Pittsburgh by one with seven seconds left, drew up a play his players hadn't run before. "Our guys have run so many sets, they're used to looking at a board. They're used to applying the board to a court, even though there's the magnitude of the NCAA tournament."
But maybe experience simply isn't as big of an advantage as we assume it is.