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Addendum: Pete Boettke's analysis from a week ago, after GMU had advanced to the sweet 16, is very informative and has several well reasoned clues for the rise of parity in men's hoops......and law and economics....
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Writing for ESPN.com, Andy Katz has this to say about the Patriots of George Mason:

But even if George Mason was a single-digit seed instead of a No. 11, that probably wouldn't matter for historical purposes. This was the greatest run ever to the Final Four. End of discussion.

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The Patriots were one of the last five at-large teams to make the field, and all they did was knock off three of the last six national champs: Michigan State (2000) in round one (without suspended second-leading scorer Tony Skinn), North Carolina (2005) in round two and Connecticut (2004) at the Verizon Center in overtime in the Elite Eight. Wedged in there was Missouri Valley champ Wichita State in the Sweet 16.

Let's go over this again: The Patriots took out Tom Izzo, Roy Williams and Jim Calhoun, the latter a Hall of Fame member and the first two likely to be enshrined some day.

I wasn't lucky enough to be there in person like Pete Boettke, who reported by email to have sat 10 rows behind the GMU bench, and Alex Tabarrok, who was ecstatic on MR. But I was lucky to have watched with Ed Stringham, Ben Powell, and an ecstatic contingent of eight crowding around the t.v. in Ben's living room. As a fan of the Spurs, Cowboys and Aggies, I never thought it would be GMU that would amaze me the most in sports. All five starters were players of the game. Best of luck to Coach Larranaga and his epitome of a team. I hope they win it all!