Many people think that the NCAA March Madness tournament is all luck. Millions of people fill out a tournament bracket each year in march. Hardly anyone gets a perfect bracket because of how many possiblities go on throughout the tournament. Mathematicians say that there is more math involved than most people think. When they fill out their brackets they calculate how often the teams win, if they go on win streaks, and their strength of schedule. When you just guess who's gonna win you have a 1 in 9 quintillion chance of getting a perfect bracket. When these mathematicians calculate the chances for teams to win there chances are 1 in 5.74 billion. There is more math involved in the tournament than you think!

 

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Questions

Did you fill out a bracket this year? Who do you have winning the tournament?

I did fill out a bracket this year, and I had Virginia winning the tournament.

Did you realize that there is actually math involved with picking teams?

I knew that people went through certain teams schedules, and looked at who they played. I did not realize that there was a lot of math involved.

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Replies

  • Well done Dalton!

  • I did not but I always am watching the bracket to see what's going on, did you do it for bruns class or just on you own? Thats a RIP on you bracket they got trashed. I don't think so because there is so many awesome upsets (Virginia)

    • That is interesting. I think that if you pay attention to the games you might as well fill out a bracket because it's free and you are paying attention to who wins any way. I know it kind of stinks that Virgina had to lose. :(

  • I did not fill out a bracket this year because honestly I dont care much about or watch it much at all. No I had no clue there was math invlovled, it is kind of wierd how you can use math to figure stuff like this out. 

  • I did not fill out a bracket. No I didn't I always thought people just picked the best seed team to win.

  • 1. Yes I did thank you for asking. I have Michigan winning.

    2. No, it doesn't matter if you calculate everything down to a T, everyone is still human and can either make mistakes or excell out of no where so I dont believe you can use all math, but I think its more luck.

    • What you are saying is an interesting point. I think that a flaw in the system is that the math may not be able to calculate all the upsets that could happen. Like this year when a one seed lost first round, I don't think you can calculate that.

  • I didn't fill out a bracket this year because I don't think there's a science or math behind it. I still don't believe that there's math behind it because for example, look at all of the upsets going on in this year's tournament. Underdog teams are beating number one seeds, so how does someone decide if the underdog or if the consistant team is going to win?

    • I see what you are saying. I think that this is definitely a flaw in what the math experts say, but they do calculate many things in the tournament, but like you said it's tough to predict the upsets.

  • 1. I didn't fill out a bracket, because I don't really follow up on sports a ton. Plus, there was the Disney trip going on and I forgot about brackets entirely until I got back. I think that there is some math involved, and simply looking at the team statistics and average win rate can help predict a perfect bracket. I didn't realize that the chances of a perfect bracket were so low though. 

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