Yahoo! Search Trends: Final Four

With the Final Four only days away, we wanted to share the below data from Yahoo! Search showing the tournament teams, topics and trends people are most searching for online this week.

If Yahoo! search trends determined the winner…
• VCU would beat Kentucky in the title game; according to Yahoo!, VCU is the top-searched team in the Final Four with searches for “VCU basketball” up 143% this week. Kentucky is the second-most-searched team, followed by Butler and UConn.

According to Yahoo!, this Week’s Top Searched Final Four Teams are:
1. VCU Basketball (searches up 143% this week)
2. Kentucky Basketball
3. Butler Basketball
4. UConn Basketball

Overall Final Four Search Trends
• Butler Pride: Butler’s improbable run to a second straight Final Four has basketball fans buzzing. According to Yahoo!, there are 119% more searches this week for “Butler basketball” than there were during the same week last year.

• Bracket Busters: It seems this year’s Final Four lineup surprised just about everybody. Searches for “unthinkable Final Four” and “lowest seed to make Final Four” are spiking off the charts this week on Yahoo!

• Staying Home: Fewer fans seem to be scrambling for Final Four tickets. Searches this week for “Final Four tickets” on Yahoo! are 42% lower compared to searches last year (when Butler, Duke, Michigan State and West Virginia participated) and 94% lower compared to searches in 2009 (when Connecticut, Michigan State, North Carolina and Villanova qualified).

Coaching Intrigue
• VCU coach Shaka Smart has caught the country’s attention. According to Yahoo!, searches for him are up 2,199% this week, most of any Final Four coach. People seem most interested in his bio, wedding and ethnicity with searches for those things spiking off the charts on Yahoo!

• Butler’s Brad Stevens is the second-most-searched coach. Searches for him are up 416% on Yahoo! this week, while searches for Kentucky coach John Calipari are up 252%.

According to Yahoo!, this Week’s Top Searched Final Four Coaches are:
1. Shaka Smart, VCU (searches up 2,199% this week)
2. Brad Stevens, Butler (searches up 416% this week)
3. John Calipari, Kentucky (searches up 252% this week)
4. Jim Calhoun, UConn

Head-to-Head
• UConn’s Kemba Walker is the most-searched player in the Final Four. According to Yahoo!, searches for Walker are 2.4 times higher than searches for Kentucky’s Brandon Knight, 6.4 times higher than searches for Butler’s Matt Howard and 13.6 times higher than searches for VCU’s Jamie Skeen.

Mascot Madness
• The Bulldogs of Butler are the most-searched mascot in the Final Four, with searches up 254% this week, according to Yahoo! The Wildcats (Kentucky), Rams (VCU) and Huskies (UConn) follow.

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What is Yahoo! Search Data?

People power: We sift through billions of Yahoo! searches to uncover trends, burning questions, popular personalities and hot ideas. Yahoo! has been extremely successful in sifting through searches for trend-spotting, historical insight, forecasting projections, and big-picture analysis.

The latest Yahoo! search trends can also be found on Twitter:
@YahooSearchData