Princeton upsets Arizona: Why your March Madness bracket is full of business lessons.

The beauty of four days of men’s and women’s basketball games this week is that no one has any idea what to expect, other than chaos. Like No. 15 seed Princeton University surprising the University of Arizona on Thursday, there are dogs against their seeding and favorites to melt down in this Silicon Valley bank’s most spectacular upset. But why does it disappear every year after improbable victories — and how those explanations apply beyond the basketball court.

So what can you learn from the impressive results of the NCAA tournament? Here are some lessons to keep in mind when those upsets ruin your bracket — from the last time Princeton beat the odds.

Be vulnerable

The single most effective strategy for underdogs can be incredibly difficult for them to accept. They must accept being below dogs.

Only in basketball could a bunch of guys from Princeton be considered underdogs, but few people thought the Tigers had a future beyond the 1996 first round. For one thing, they were the No. 13 seed. In another thing, they were playing the University of California, Los Angeles, the defending national champion.

But on Princeton’s bench that day in a baggy sweater was the most important person in the arena: a frail, white-haired, 65-year-old known as Yoda.

His real name was Pete Carrill, and the coach who died last year pioneered a Princeton offense where the team milked the clock in search of good shots. It also became a formula for getting rid of frustration. By slowing down the tempo and reducing the number of possessions in play, Princeton increases the odds and the potential for statistical flow and the likelihood of success.

Princeton did something else against UCLA that seemed like a radical idea only an underdog could like. Mr. Karl was one of the first people in basketball to understand that 3-pointers were worth more than 2-pointers – not just a little bit, but a lot more. 50% moreA distorted perception of the National Basketball Association and the status of the sport. While other coaches clamored for the 3-point line, Mr. Carril realized there was an opportunity hidden in plain sight. He told the teams to shoot.

Those two concepts became the basis of Princeton’s game plan against UCLA: slow down and shoot the three. Mr. Carril’s team executed it to perfection.

The brilliance of this approach is that it is designed to sprinkle even more randomness into the most random event in sports. It was dangerous, but that was the point. Just as the Princeton Tigers couldn’t beat more talented teams at their own game, an upstart can’t catch Apple and expect to battle the world’s richest company with smartphone dominance. To level the playing field, the best shooter had changed the lines of competition. They will win only if they drag UCLA into a completely different, elusive style of basketball, something that would be rare if Mr. Carrill’s team had turned its square court into a rhombus.

Such bold thinking is how the lowly people of any industry start to complain and win. Final score that day: Princeton 43, UCLA 41.

One of the Princeton starters in that memorable game was a guard named Mitch Henderson. As it turns out, he was involved in another impressive feat this week: He’s now Princeton’s coach.

Also, be lucky

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County used a version of the Princeton formula to pull off the biggest upset in men’s NCAA Tournament history in 2018 over Virginia: the first time a No. 16 seed has ever fallen. A number 1 seed. Virginia was the slowest team in the country that year, meaning they were incredibly vulnerable to big upsets, and UMBC relied on 3-pointers that day. It worked once again.

But there’s another lesson in the history of undercover retrievers: they got lucky.

Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the role of luck in their career success is probably someone you don’t want to go into business with. What we attribute to talent is often nothing more than pure chance, and success is a measure of our response to that situation.

In most workplaces, there is no real way to measure success. In basketball, he said. In fact, the statistical website kenpom.com ranks teams by their odds, based on a number that is the difference between actual and expected winning percentage.

And the team at the top of these rankings in 2018 was UMBC.

A lucky team in college basketball wouldn’t be playing Virginia if it weren’t for a few hustles and breaks. UMBC has used it extensively. Luckily, the 1st team beat the 1st team at home by 20 points.

The UMBC Retrievers drive to the basket in the team’s 2018 win over Virginia, top left. The Retrievers celebrated their 20-point victory at top right and above. Getty Images (3)

First of all, it can be the best

UMBC’s first No. 16 win in the men’s bracket was 20 years ago. The underdog in that game was Harvard University.

Before the 1998 season, two top-seeded Stanford University’s key players were injured and the Crimson had limited chances that day. They raced out to a double-digit lead midway through the first half and took a 43-34 lead into halftime. The unprecedented seemed impossible.

It’s not exactly a secret that there’s a primary advantage in business and basketball, but going forward is especially important in matchups with tight resources. Upstarts and upstarts challenge incumbents by taking an early lead—think Netflix, once known for stuffing DVDs in paper envelopes, to streaming the rest of Hollywood. Lower dogs cannot be conservative and maintain proper strategy when they act from a position of weakness. This is how companies go bankrupt and teams fail in the NCAA Tournament.

But the way Harvard started that day helped shape how the game ended. The longer they hang around, the better their chances of survival. Harvard was certain to win when Stanford came back in the second half. And he did.

Never let a crisis go to waste

Last year, the school from New Jersey made other basketball dogs look like the Great Danes.

There was no chance that tiny St. Peter’s University would beat the mighty University of Kentucky in the first round or become the first No. 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight. But the most unlikely part of the story was how it began: the Covid-19 pandemic.

Saint Peter evaluated how they wanted to play while they were there They were not to play. When the virus tore through their locker room and shut down the program for nearly a month in the middle of the season, Pecox coach Shaheen Holloway used it to rethink the defense, redrawing the lineup and experimenting with ideas. The only thing he forgot was to order the glass slippers for Cinderella’s run. Their record was 3-6 on the season, but they finished 19-6 the rest of the season and made it through the extended break.

Most people would rather spend time thinking about the plague than duking it out. But last year’s March Madness served as a reminder that organizations always find ways to profit from unexpected and seemingly tragic events.

Tesla has sold millions of electric cars. Moderna created a vaccine and billions of dollars in market value. Tik Tok has benefited from many hours of lost productivity.

And the Peacocks basketball team won three games in the NCAA tournament.

Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com