.jpg)
1 hour ago
3
The NCAA Tournament is back. March Madness brackets are here. It's time to do your best to get all the picks right.
But will you? Will anyone? Perfection is certainly not the most likely outcome. Upsets abound. There are a lot of games. Teams have off nights, or scorching hot nights. So many factors go into a single game, let alone all of them.
So a perfect bracket, which usually has promotions out there for phenomenal payouts if you get it -- you're probably not going to have one.
Here's why.
MORE: UMBC upset remains the epitome of March Madness
Has anyone ever picked a perfect bracket?
No, there has never been a known perfect bracket in the history of the NCAA Tournament.
According to the NCAA, a neurophysiologist correctly predicted the first 49 games during the 2019 tourney. That got him partway into the Sweet 16.
What are the odds of a perfect bracket?
The math here is both simple and complex, but the odds are nearly zero.
If you just view every game as a 50-50 chance, the odds of getting all 63 correct work out to 1 in 9.2 quintillion.
What's a quintillion? It's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. So it's 1 in 9.2 of that.
Of course, not every game is a 50-50 outcome. That complicates the math.
The NCAA reports that your odds, with strong knowledge, are more like 1 in 120 billion.
If you find the way to a perfect bracket, it'll be the most unlikely thing you ever do in your life.
English (US)