March Madness is here! The time where all professional sports are put aside and the spotlight shines on college basketball. Over the next three weeks, 64 teams will be competing to take the title of National Champions. Just like every other year, millions get together and make their own bracket of who they think will be winning the tournament.
There's no true method of creating a solid bracket. Some people follow statistics and pick the top ranked teams to make it into the finals. Others, like myself, take a different route of picking a few underdogs to make it all the way. Then there are the people who just blindly go in and write down whoever they feel in that moment.
No matter which one you are, you don't have any better chance on scoring a perfect bracket over the next person. In fact, your chances of having the perfect bracket are about 1 in 128 billion. Read that again. 1 in 128 billion. This number was calculated by DePaul professor Jeff Bergen, who did way more math than I could follow. However, this may not even be the exact number. Some people believe that the chances could be even lower than that. To put into perspective how unrealistic it would be for you to get the perfect bracket, here are some things you have a better chance at accomplishing.
Becoming The President of the United States of America.
Yes, you read that right. I'm telling you that you have a better chance of beating Trump (please) out for president than having a perfect March Madness bracket. The odds of becoming the president are 1 in 10 million.
Becoming a saint.
Though your chances are a bit lower than becoming the president, becoming a saint is a hard task to accomplish. Your odds of becoming a saint are set at 1 in 20 million. You literally have a better chance of becoming a saint than having a perfect bracket.
Finding more than 100 four leaf clovers.
You might want to try and find one if you're trying to have that perfect bracket. You have a 1 in 10,000 chance of finding one, so personally finding 100 would be 1 in 1 million, which is still way more likely to happen.
Dying from hot tap water.
Your chances for this are about 1 in 5,005,564. Yes, it's possible, and it could happen to you 100 times, and you'd still have a better chance of having it happen again before having a perfect bracket.
Dating a supermodel.
Fingers crossed that this one happens. The odds of a dating a supermodel are still set fairly high at 1 in 88,000. But hey, when you compare that to 1 in 128 billion, it's like you almost have a chance, right?
Getting attacked by a shark.
First off, you have a better chance of getting attacked by a hippo or a deer than a shark. The odds of being attacked by a shark are about 1 in 11,500,000, which averages out to about maybe five attacks a year. With that being said, I can't even tell you how many times you could get attacked by a shark before picking the perfect bracket.
And even after finding out the odds, I still made my bracket and fully intend on watching the tournament and cheering on my underdog teams! Although we all pretty much know we will never have the perfect bracket, it's still fun to try and have the best bracket out of the horrible brackets between you and your friends. But who knows, maybe this could be the year that you end up being that 1 in 128 billion.
