I don’t like to gamble. It’s not my thing. I never played cards. Nor the slots. Forget about the skill machines, and those games of chance. I used to put money down on the Super Bowl. But that got ugly. I believe his name was Boris. I stopped giving money to my friends during the NCAA Tournament. I had all four teams in the final four. Wasn’t I in the money? NO. My girlfriend had a perfect bracket. Dude?
The stats don’t lie. Experts from the Ivy League say you have a 1 in 2^63 chance of remaining perfect. That is 1 in 9.2 quintillion. What? That’s like me getting struck by lightning while on Lycoming Creek with exactly $4.65 in my right back pocket.
I love the game of basketball. I also crunched numbers in college. I am a so-called Bracketologist — a savvy veteran. Folks will often ask for my picks. I have years of experience. But I normally tell them that my lovely bride knows more when it comes to March Madness. True story. I no longer partake. I was tired of seeing our secretary win the stakes and my $20. Dudes fill out and submit 15 chances. I had that upset. Yes. I picked them to go to the Elite 8. They are my favorite team. Etc. Bogus.
36 million hoops fans filled out online brackets. This number includes the friendly challenges on ESPN, CBS SPORTS, Yahoo Sports, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and the Villa. Let’s take a look at some numbers after the first day of the tournament. We saw three major upsets. There are now only 14,000 perfect brackets remaining.
The biggest dent (by total number) came in the first set, when TCU knocked off Ohio State. Roughly half of the submitted brackets were left standing. Another 2.5 million were eliminated when Nebraska defeated Troy. High Point’s 83-82 upset over Wisconsin did some major damage. Bringing the total down to 2.3 million perfect brackets. It was then cut to 1.2 million when Louisville held off USF. Still with me?
Duke avoided what could have been the biggest upset in tournament history. The Blue Devils nipped Sienna 71-65. Wins from Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Michigan State left more than 700,000 perfects. When VCU rallied and pulled off a miracle over UNC, only 300,000 unblemished brackets remained. That total was halved once again when Texas A&M took down St. Mary’s. Texas then snubbed BYU 79-71, leaving us with 30,000. That is incredible.
St. Louis dominated Georgia in one of the nightcaps. Gonzaga cruised over Kennesaw State. Leaving us 14,000 perfect calls. 16 games. About 0.039% of the 36 million submissions. Just a reminder: that doesn’t include the office pools and fundraisers. Remarkable stuff. Again. That is after day 1. So please be wary when someone says they had every pick. Haha. Cheers.
