Every year, millions of people participate in the seemingly impossible March Madness Bracket Challenge. Prior to 2014, the challenge had no incentive other than bragging rights.
Billionaire Warren Buffet wanted to change that; he now offers $1 billion to anyone who can correctly predict the outcomes of the 63 March Madness games.
This new incentive to play created even more people to develop several brackets – each person can create up to 10.
However, Buffet’s generous offer stands on the basis that the odds of winning are about one in nine quintillion. Given that there are 63 games and two possible outcomes for each game, based on the outcome of prior games within the tournament, your chances of creating a perfect bracket are deemed impossible by hundreds of analysts.
In 2013, no one who participated on Yahoo or CBS Sports correctly predicted any more than 50 games.
But still, anything is possible.
Utah State basketball player Elston Jones has been filling out brackets for eight years. Jones says, “I fill out five brackets a year and the highest percentage I’ve ever gotten was a 97 percent.”
At the rate of success for getting a perfect bracket, even a 97 percent seems near impossible. That 3 percent is achievable, but even professional analysts know that not everything boils down to who the better team is. During the tournament, lower seeds are notorious for upsetting higher seeds.
However, the NCAA website advises participants not to pick a No. 4 or 5 seed to win the national title; Arizona’s 1997 team is the only No. 4 or 5 seed in history to pull it off, beating three No. 1 seeds.
So, it’s proven that anything is indeed possible with a little luck on your side. Keeping in mind that not everything is as it seems, the probability of every higher seed winning is even lower than your chances of getting a perfect bracket.
NCAA also says that a problem people have is, “picking with their heart and not their head.” Most people participate for fun, well aware of the odds, causing them to pick their favorite teams to be successful; that makes your chances twice as slim as everyone else’s.
“Picking the best teams to win obvious games is easy, but picking the right underdogs to win is the tough part,” Jones said, “I don’t think anyone will win anytime soon.”
Jones’ prediction for this year; A surprising No. 18 Maryland takes the national title. If he’s correct, he should probably start buying lottery tickets.
The extremely low odds don’t stop people from playing, and analysts urge everyone to continue to make brackets each year. With the right knowledge of veteran players and team stats, especially under pressure, maybe you can reach 97%, or even be that missing 3 percent that takes home $1 billion.
