Well, there are two ways to calculate that. The first is to assume that all teams are equal in quality, and develop a random bracket generator to get you the right answer. In that case, the odds of correctly selecting the perfect bracket is 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Or said differently "one in nine million trillion." (Yes. I wrote that right)
In terms of decimal points, it looks like this:
One in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808
The other way to do it. You could somehow weight each team based on the historical odds that a team of that seeding would advance. For instance:
- The #16 seed has never beaten a #1 seed
- The #2 seed has only lost four times to the #15 seed. And no #15 seed has ever won a second round game.
- The #14 seed has beaten the #3 seed fifteen times, but the #14 seed has only advanced to the Sweet 16 twice. The Sweet 16 stat here is interesting because UGA is a 14 seed and because the UT-Chattanooga team that did it knocked UGA out of the tournament in Tubby's second year.
In case you are wondering, no major bracket selection web site (which process MILLIONS of brackets per year) has ever processed a perfect bracket. That includes Yahoo, ESPN and Sportsline. That's according to the WSJ (link in last sentence) and PBS.
PWD
4 comments:
Wow, that means: if every man, woman & child on the face of the Earth each filled out 1.4 billion brackets, someone would likely have one perfect bracket. I quit!
I'd bet it's about a 1 in 1 million chance in "real world" odds of picking it perfectly.
But the one in 9.2 quintillion version does present some funny possibilities, like all the millions of ways you could fill out your bracket where UGA beats Mt. St. Mary's for the championship. I got one of those on my bracket.
....move that team there...alright. I've got it.
1 in 9 million trillion . . .
So you're tellin' me there's a chance!
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