Bracket Busters
Every
year, millions of individuals across the United States fill out a bracket for
the NCAA basketball tournament, only to cry out in horror as favorites lose and
underdog teams pull out improbably upsets. This year was no different. Third seeded
Iowa State lost in the very first round of the tournament, shocked by the
previously unheard of University of Alabama-Birmingham. Powerhouse Virginia
lost to seven seeded Michigan State in the Sweet Sixteen. Mighty Kentucky
didn’t even make it to the finals after many had predicted them to win the
entire tournament. So why then do we fill out brackets, even though they will
be reduced to a pile of tears and incorrectness in just a matter of weeks?
There are 68 teams in the tournament and the odds of getting every single team
right is about 9 quintillionth. That’s a 9 with 18 zeroes. The exact number is
9,223,372,036,854,808. Most calculators can’t even get that high! Therefore,
the possibility of your bracket being correct is just about zero. Nevertheless,
with a little luck and extensive knowledge about each team in the tournament,
you might just be able get close. The winning bracket this year submitted in
the ESPN tournament challenge guessed 61 out of 67 games correct. When we see
others come this close, it inspires us to try again next year, believing once
again that this just might be our year.
No comments:
Post a Comment