Why NCAA Tournament underdogs should wear red jerseys

We're a full week into the 2014 edition of the NCAA Men's Final Four tournament. With 52 games in the books, it's as good a time as any to look at some jersey stats through the tourney so far.

When it comes to the Final Four tournament the higher ranked school is always designated as the "home" team and therefore wears their home jersey, for a good majority of teams this jersey is white but we've seen a few here-and-theres this year opt for less traditional home colors such as yellow (Baylor, Oregon, Michigan) or a silver/grey (Memphis, Louisville, Colorado, Creighton).

Knowing that the higher seed or favorite always wears the light color it's no surprise that the team dressed in white, yellow, or grey is dominating so far in the tournament.

Teams in white are 31-13, a .705 winning percentage so far, grey is a surprising 2-2. But the yellows? A perfect 4-0, thanks to wins from Michigan, Baylor, and Oregon.

Tally it all up and the lights (or, as is more relevant, the higher seeds) are 37-15, or winning 71% of games played.

Of the lower-seeds we've seen 7 different jersey colors - blacks (3-11) and blues (3-10), the two most commonly worn colors by the lower seed, have combined for an awful, but expected, 6-21, .222 winning percentage; maroons (0-4) and greens (1-4) are an even more abysmal 1-8; while purples (2-3) and oranges (1-1) are a respectable 3-4.

The color most responsible for busting your bracket? Blame it all on red.

Lower seeds wearing red are 5-4, .556

Lower seeds NOT wearing red are 10-33, .233

Dayton, Stanford (and one by NC State in the First Four) are responsible for the over-50% winning percentage of red-clad underdogs in this tournament.

While jersey color *probably* doesn't mean anything when it comes to performance, especially over such a small sample size of 52 games, it is worth nothing that over the 2431 regular and post-season games played in Major League Baseball in 2013 we saw similar results.

Like the NCAA tournament, the most successful light color in baseball during 2013 was yellow, with teams wearing yellow or gold going 22-13, winning 63% of their games played. Remember teams in yellow are a perfect 4-0 in the Final Four this year.

The most successful dark color in baseball? You guessed it, red. Eight MLB teams wore red jerseys in 2013 and they combined to win at a 54% clip with a record of 110-95; every other dark color (blue, black, orange, purple, grey), aside from green/teals, all had records below .500.

What does it all mean?

Honestly, I would have thought nothing more than a mere interesting statistical note ... but then I discovered a 2005 study by a couple of British anthropologists which concluded when two sporting equals met up in the 2004 Athens Olympics, the one wearing red proved more successful slightly more often than the one in blue.

"In each event Olympic staff randomly assigned red or blue clothing or body protection to competitors. When otherwise equally matched with their opponent in fitness and skill, athletes wearing red were more likely to win the bout. In equally matched bouts, the preponderance of red wins was great enough that it could not be attributed to chance. Hill and Barton found similar results in a review of the colors worn at the Euro 2004 international soccer tournament"

The theory speculates that judges or referees were more likely to be subconsciously favorable to the red teams similar to how in the animal kingdom, among some species, red indicates dominance over others.

So ... is the red the reason why the Anaheim Angels won their first World Series in 2002? After all, it was their first season wearing red uniforms after 40 years of losing while wearing blue; or those Houston Rockets going from back-to-back NBA champs in all red jerseys to a forgettable franchise the second they replaced the red with blue?

I don't know, but if you're looking to win your NCAA bracket next year, maybe pick a couple of teams in red to pull off an upset or two. Seems like a safe bet to me.

Chris Creamer is the creator and editor of SportsLogos.net. You can follow him on twitter at @sportslogosnet.