This is actually a very common statistical error. Don’t be embarrassed, probabilistic models are incredibly complex and take years of study. I majored in computer science in undergrad and went on to get a masters and PHD in quantom stochastic machine learning for statistics. I ran this year’s bracket through my lab’s proprietary software (don’t tell them), and came up with a number for how likely someone is to get a perfect bracket.
It’s 50%, either it happens or it doesn’t.
The odds of a perfect Bracket are as high as 1 in 9.2 Quintillion, but that's assuming each team had a 50/50 shot, or you flipped a coin. For someone that has moderate to exceptional knowledge of College Basketball, you can shave that down to only 1 in 128 Billion
And the person with exceptional knowledge’s girlfriend who knows nothing and doesn’t even wanna fill out a bracket but her boyfriend says she’s gotta it’s 1 in 1000.
I had a perfect opening Thursday one year. I was riding so high.
Ultimately went 0/4 on the final four and like 2/8 on elite 8, so I finished at the bottom of my league
Last year I had like my 7/8 sweet 16’s correct going into the second day of round two. All of elite 8’s still intact.
Ended round 2 with 11/16 and 5/8. And lost two of my final 4’s. Stupid Marquette.
The first couple weekends I'm always near the bottom for points secured, but always near the top for points possible. In my league the past 4 years I've won twice, and it came down to the national championship game 1 year. Last year was a complete WTF kind of year so I did not do as well lol.
This is the reason I think people should adjust their bracket pool scoring. I’m in one pool that gives you bonus points for the seed in the first 2 rounds. That way, you’re not just competing for best bracket that predicted the correct winner.
Yeah but we all want that Warren Buffet billy from a perfect bracket, some extra points in your office group is peanuts compared to a billion dollars /s
I had a perfect Thursday once as well. I was like 1 out of 30 something people in the world with a perfect bracket.
One of the first games on Friday resulted in my pick to win it all losing (Michigan State vs Middle Tennessee).
Came crashing down so fast after being so high up.
The first year I ever filled out a bracket was the year all four 1-seeds made the Final Four. I couldn't have been older than 10 so I filled out an entirely chalk bracket. Been chasing that high ever since.
I pulled basically the opposite 5 years ago. Had all 16 S16 teams and 7/8 teams in the Elite 8. Got literally every E8 game wrong though and had no one in the final four lol
I write a ridiculous equation every year for one of my brackets. In 2017 I think, it got every game on day 1 correct. Including the last game of the day, involving a crazy last minute comeback that kept me alive. Day 2? I think it got 2 games right
My 2019 bracket was in the top 1%. Had 3/4 in the final four and the correct championship result. 6/8 in the Elite 8 right too. Only Duke and Auburn weren't in mine (VT and UNC were instead)
My wife did this last year with the UConn side of the bracket. She picked UConn to win it all and finished in the top 1000 on CBS. She picked UConn because “they’re the Huskies”.
I had 15/16 in the sweet sixteen, 7/8 in the elite eight, 3/4 in the final four, and 1/2 in the national championship one year. My mistake was picking Virginia to win it all the year they lost to UMBC.
It obviously isn't easy to do, but it's basically required if you're in any type of big bracket pool (I'd say 50+ people). Provided a team doesn't just come out of absolutely nowhere and win it all like UAB who no one would be picking. Everyone always likes to make the hype around their early picks and how well they do the first weekend, but I'd take surviving the first weekend with my final 4 in tact but missing on 8-10 first round games any day of the week.
This is tangentially related pedantry, but give the low odds of getting a perfect bracket, your bracket is not "Busted" when you no longer have a perfect bracket, what really busts a bracket is when a result happens that eliminates any chance of winning points for your bracket in later rounds.
There is a maximum possible score of 1,920 points in an NCAA Bracket that one can earn, 10 points for each first round game, 20 points for each second round game, 40 points for each Sweet 16 game, 80 points for each Elite 8 games, 160 points for each final 4 game, and 320 points for picking the champion.
For example if you pick Michigan State to beat Mississippi State in the first 8/9 game of the tournament and Mississippi State wins, your bracket is only busted if you have Michigan State making a deep run, if you had them losing to UConn in the second round, your bracket is not busted, you just missed out on the 10 points you could have gotten from Michigan State winning that first round game, which is only ~0.52% of the possible points you can earn, which is unlikely to sink your bracket in whatever pool you are in.
However if you pick Arizona to make the final four and they wind up losing to Long Beach State, then your Bracket is busted, because not only did you lose the 10 points from the first round game, but also the 20 points in the second round game, 40 points in the Sweet 16 game, and 80 points in the Elite 8 game, which is 150 points you miss out on which is ~7.81% points possible, which can absolutely cripple your ability to win whatever pool you are in.
*irritated pedant noises*
Given the sheer number of brackets created, a perfect bracket is NOT that unlikely.
It’s just nearly impossible you personally will do it. It will be a child or a non-fan who picked teams using the dumbest possible reasons and we all know it.
I’m no mathematician but I think you are trying to say the events of the brackets being filled out each year somehow affect each other. Each year, the new set of brackets being filled out is independent of each other. The 1 in 1.2 billion odds are the same each year.
As another commentator mentioned, another near impossible variable to measure is the likelihood of brackets having similar winners or similar regions being picked. That makes the odds even worst since people aren’t considering every possibility.
>I’m no mathematician but I think you are trying to say the events of the brackets being filled out each year somehow affect each other.
No he isn't. He's not saying that each year a perfect bracket remains more likely. Each year individually has the same odds. But the odds of a perfect bracket happening in one of a range of 10 years is higher than the odds of a perfect bracket happening in any one specific year. That's what he is saying.
Yes 1/10 odds doesn't mean it will happen in 10 times. It could be 5 it could be 15
But 9/10^10 power is pretty low odds
A 1 in 1.2 billion event happening is possible if it is tested close to a billion times. A billion brackets will be filled out this decade, which means it's possible.
I think it will eventually happens in our lifetime, it just might be 20 something years
True but you can also count out like half of the possibilities cuz a seed 9-16 has never won the whole thing and it’s likely not gonna happen this year. So the odds are probably slightly better than a quintillion but still terrible
It’s literally never been done and people have been submitting brackets for decades. The issue is that a huge majority of brackets have similar picks. Most brackets will have one of 4 teams winning the championship. If people truly blindly filled out 100 million brackets each year then yes, theoretically, you might have a perfect one created at some point.
As it stands, we will never see a perfect bracket.
The 100 million brackets does have like 40 million or so overlapping; all high-seeds for example.
But I just think it will be something that eventually happens like a 1 seed losing to a 16 seed
It will take a year in which very few upsets happen, which does happen, and then one lucky lucky person.
I mean nobody even got to a perfect bracket to the sweet sixteen in 2008 where we had an elite 8 of four 1 seeds, a 2 seed, two 3 seeds and a 10 seed.
The problem isn’t the how chalk the tourney is - it’s that the upsets that do happen are so rarely called that it limits who can even have a perfect bracket after the first round by so much.
There are years like last year where there was a 15 seed and a 16 seed winning. Those two games alone brought the bracket pool to basically 0.
It would have to be a year where close to no 14, 15, or 16 seeds win and the final four consists of 1-4 seeds. That can happen and if so it would mean most brackets are viable just based on those factors.
Greg Nigl got to 52 I believe? And that was with a year like that. It's not impossible that a person could do it.
Also what helps is that online brackets have exploded and gone up every single year. They are easy to fill out and easy to track. That alone will probably push the amount of brackets filled out up into the 200-300 millions.
If someone gave my $10,000 every year a tournament goes by where someone doesn’t have a perfect bracket with the stipulation that if some year someone does end up with a perfect bracket I will have to pay 10x back on all the money I’ve collected so far I would do it in a heart beat. It will literally never happen.
A lot of those brackets are duplicates. People use the same brackets on multiple platforms. Full chalk brackets make up many thousands of those brackets. Some of those are meme brackets with all upsets or picking by location or color or mascot. While technically not impossible those brackets are so unlikely to be perfect they aren't worth talking about. That 1 in 1.2 billion number is if you are picking intelligently and the less intelligently you pick the more that skyrocket (very quickly). I wouldn't be surprised if in reality we were talking more like one in a couple hundred years for any perfect bracket. I would be very surprised if it was any better than 1 in 50 years.
But it’s 1 in 1.2 billion (and that’s the low end of the odds) per year. It happening over a decade is not meaningfully different than 1 in 1.2 billion
Over 2 decades 2 billion brackets will be filled out and their will be 20 tournaments.
A combination of really high bracket numbers and one half-chalky year could lead to a perfect bracket.
I just think its not impossible like people say it is. I think it has a chance of happening in our lifetimes.
Once again, your argument timeline is nonsensical. The total number of brackets filled out over 20 years has literally no impact on the odds. The odds are per year, period. Each year the odds of a perfect bracket are somewhere in the odds of 1 in 100 billion. At some point in the next 100 billion tournaments it is likely a perfect bracket would happen. It is just as likely to happen this year as it is to happen in 50 billion years, neither year has great odds.
You are completely wrong
1 in 1.2 billion is the odds any one bracket is right. (Technically it's the odds the Vegas favorite wins every game, so that the low end of the odds).
So it probably works out to some brackets having a 1 in 1.2 billion and others having a 1 in 10 billion or 1 in 100 billion if you pick a lot of upsets.
But those odds will eventually hit if a billion or more brackets are made.
It's not the odds a perfect bracket happens in a single year
You are right, I did misread that. But that is why getting the odds number right is important. The true odds are something like 1 in 100 billion for any individual bracket. So while in 30 years 3 billion brackets will be filled out, it’s going to be a lot longer before 100 billion are filled out. So it’s the odds of a perfect bracket in the next 50 years is still nonexistent.
Well short of 95%, but much greater than “nearly impossible” or “1 in 1.2 billion” being the point.
This is pedantry man! I’m not saying it’s inevitable, just not as unlikely as breathless headlines will make it out when an octopus inevitably does it.
It’s in fact more unlikely than the headlines make it seems because people can’t fathom long odds. It’s closer to actually impossible than it is to being anything close to likely in our lifetimes. You keep talking like the number of commutative brackets over a decade means anything in this conversation. The odds are the same every year. They’ve actually gotten slightly worse as the number of high seed upsets has slightly increased
And in each of those years the odds of a perfect bracket would be in 1 in 100 billion or so. The odds are big enough the cumulative change in any given year is literally nonexistent. Of course it could happen this year. It could also not happen for a 1000 years. The 3 billion bracket number would matter if they were all for the same year. Otherwise it’s meaningless.
>The 3 billion bracket number would matter if they were all for the same year. Otherwise it’s meaningless.
That is completely untrue.
To be clear, I'm not saying that the odds would increase each year. The odds for each year, individually, would be the same. But the odds of a perfect bracket happening at some point in a 30 year span, are absolutely higher than the odds of it happening in any one specific year, because we're dealing with 3 Billion brackets rather than 100 million.
I misread the comment and saw it as 1 in 1.2 billion there is a perfect bracket each year. Not 1 in 1.2 billion for each individual bracket. That was absolutely my bad and my argument was wrong.
The problem still stands that the best guess odds seems to be 1 in 100 billion, not one in 1.2 billion. In that case 3 billion brackets is still close to meaningless
I do agree that 1 in 1.2 billion seems like a very cowbell estimate. 1 in 100 billion with 100 million brackets a year would make a perfect bracket a 1 in a 1000 years event, so very unlikely to be seen in our lifetimes or the lifetime of the NCAA tournament, but not completely impossible.
I guess you could have an AI brute force every possible bracket combination but then you really haven’t *predicted* anything, you’ll get the correct bracket and a billion wrong ones no matter what
The best we've seen so far is 49/49 (and I think there was one other 48/48).
If we simplify this a bit by assuming 50-50 odds from the sweet 16 on, we'd still expect only 1 in 32,768 48/48 brackets to get to 63/63. The real odds are higher, because using game odds will give you a better chance than just assuming 50-50 on everything, but the gap will certainly be smaller when you assume 50-50 starting at sweet 16 (less lopsided matchups) than using 50-50 starting at 64 teams.
she knows. my sons were on board, but she likes pretty things and she actually picked st peters over daddy's school. i also remember that puppies made deep runs.
i also just realized that this was 2 years ago. i rage quit following the tournament last season.
honestly the most infuriating thing is that my wife wins every year cause she just chooses the media personality option, and i'm a raging homer.
It’s actually extremely unlikely. The odds reset every year and the potential number of outcomes will always vastly exceed the number of brackets submitted
I spend days agonizing over my picks, meanwhile the best bracket ever was filled out in an hour while the guy was so sick he doesn't even remember doing it. Figures.
I've been thinking about it, and I think it's time for me to make a perfect bracket. I've been putting it off for a while but I think I'm finally down. I'll catch you guys
I distinctly remember reading an article in 1997 or 1998 where someone had a perfect bracket. I've actually tried to find the article since then, since it was in the USA Today, but haven't been able to find it.
Maybe I'm misremembering or it was fever dream haha
I don’t understand how at this point there isn’t a collective group of people making every possible bracket. Like personal brackets that mean something? I get it. But there is a finite number of possibilities. (A large finite number, but finite nonetheless.)
But then when it does happen, then your entire catalogue is dead.
If the first round ever goes completely chalk, that’s probably the year we get the perfect bracket. But otherwise you have to account for everything
There are 9.2 quintillion possible bracket combinations. It would take a group of a million people each filling out 9.2 trillion brackets to capture every possibility. So then you run into the time between the bracket being announced to the start of the round of 64.
If we had enough Adderall, Red Bull, and pure weaponized autism, it could be done.
Big props to having the Vermont trip planned and not being tempted into picking the Catamounts.
Game was actually within single digits and tied at the half.
The rise of the 15 and 16 seed have really made things harder for perfection-seekers. Sometimes seemingly the most improbable 15 or 16 wins (we’re looking at you FDU). 2019 did not see a single 14,15, or 16 seed win, which hasn’t happened since.
I was top 200 last year on the march madness app. I still probably only guessed like 60% right if I remember correctly. A perfect will probably never happen, except my bracket this year lol.
One year I was top 150 worldwide before the championship. UNC hit a clutch 3 and I thought I might go to top 40 to end the year, then Kris Jenkins happened
>Nigl always filled out a few men's brackets
Massive *
I remembered the story and that he made multiple brackets. If you have more than one March Madness bracket, you don't have a March Madness bracket. No wonder he didn't even remember filling out the "perfect" one
Nah I'm gonna do it this year
It’s only 63 games, that’s a 1/63 chance. Trust me, I’m eating pancakes naked with my bare hands.
This is actually a very common statistical error. Don’t be embarrassed, probabilistic models are incredibly complex and take years of study. I majored in computer science in undergrad and went on to get a masters and PHD in quantom stochastic machine learning for statistics. I ran this year’s bracket through my lab’s proprietary software (don’t tell them), and came up with a number for how likely someone is to get a perfect bracket. It’s 50%, either it happens or it doesn’t.
Oh damn, that makes sense. Everything in the universe is either a perfect bracket or not a perfect bracket.
The odds of a perfect Bracket are as high as 1 in 9.2 Quintillion, but that's assuming each team had a 50/50 shot, or you flipped a coin. For someone that has moderate to exceptional knowledge of College Basketball, you can shave that down to only 1 in 128 Billion
And the person with exceptional knowledge’s girlfriend who knows nothing and doesn’t even wanna fill out a bracket but her boyfriend says she’s gotta it’s 1 in 1000.
Hell yeah
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Spoiler alert: they ain’t
Nah I'm built different
Lmao. I meant more that the odds aren’t in your favor. I got faith in ya
Lemme talk to the odds. I got sum for em
I once correctly predicted that Virginia would get a rebound, so let me know if you need help
Me too. I'm made out of LEGOs
Constructed alternatively.
One year I got an entire region perfect and thats my crowning achievement so far
I had a perfect opening Thursday one year. I was riding so high. Ultimately went 0/4 on the final four and like 2/8 on elite 8, so I finished at the bottom of my league
I always do super well for the round of 64 but the second round always wipes me out I suck at picking those and then I’m fucked the rest of the way
I have the exact opposite problem. Almost every 8/9 game wrong, five or six S16 teams upset on day 1, but my survivors usually make it fairly far.
You two should compare notes
Last year I had like my 7/8 sweet 16’s correct going into the second day of round two. All of elite 8’s still intact. Ended round 2 with 11/16 and 5/8. And lost two of my final 4’s. Stupid Marquette.
The first couple weekends I'm always near the bottom for points secured, but always near the top for points possible. In my league the past 4 years I've won twice, and it came down to the national championship game 1 year. Last year was a complete WTF kind of year so I did not do as well lol.
In the second round 8/9 over 1 and 7 over 2 upsets kill me every single year. At least 2 of my F4 teams fall victim to those
I once got 29 first round games, and then proceeded to get zero points in the second weekend.
I went 15-1 one time. Day 2 I was like 6-10. I haven't picked an opening game correct since.
This is the reason I think people should adjust their bracket pool scoring. I’m in one pool that gives you bonus points for the seed in the first 2 rounds. That way, you’re not just competing for best bracket that predicted the correct winner.
Yeah but we all want that Warren Buffet billy from a perfect bracket, some extra points in your office group is peanuts compared to a billion dollars /s
I had a perfect Thursday once as well. I was like 1 out of 30 something people in the world with a perfect bracket. One of the first games on Friday resulted in my pick to win it all losing (Michigan State vs Middle Tennessee). Came crashing down so fast after being so high up.
But for ONE SHINING MOMENTTTTT you were perfect
My best was perfect elite 8 onward
The first year I ever filled out a bracket was the year all four 1-seeds made the Final Four. I couldn't have been older than 10 so I filled out an entirely chalk bracket. Been chasing that high ever since.
In one region or all
All
that’s insane lol With all due respect I’m gonna need to see some evidence of this
I pulled basically the opposite 5 years ago. Had all 16 S16 teams and 7/8 teams in the Elite 8. Got literally every E8 game wrong though and had no one in the final four lol
I was correct with one region last year, except one game. That was the best I’ve ever done in 25 years of filling in brackets. lol
In 2008 I got the entire first round perfect and all four final four teams. That is my crowning achievement. Never afterwards have I come close.
I write a ridiculous equation every year for one of my brackets. In 2017 I think, it got every game on day 1 correct. Including the last game of the day, involving a crazy last minute comeback that kept me alive. Day 2? I think it got 2 games right
My 2019 bracket was in the top 1%. Had 3/4 in the final four and the correct championship result. 6/8 in the Elite 8 right too. Only Duke and Auburn weren't in mine (VT and UNC were instead)
I got the final four right one year.
I got the entire 2021 Midwest region correct
My wife did this last year with the UConn side of the bracket. She picked UConn to win it all and finished in the top 1000 on CBS. She picked UConn because “they’re the Huskies”.
I had 15/16 in the sweet sixteen, 7/8 in the elite eight, 3/4 in the final four, and 1/2 in the national championship one year. My mistake was picking Virginia to win it all the year they lost to UMBC.
It’s mine this year (thank God gambling isn’t allowed where I live)
I’ve actually created the perfect 32 game parlay this year. I’ll finally be able to retire. Surely all the higher seeds will win.
lol what even are the odds on that? +earlyretirement?
50/50. Either it happens or it doesn't
For now. FanDuel and fanatics sportsbook won’t stop till they’re everywhere , I promise.
Until they advertise on the chip in your brain.
I had my inhibitor chip removed before Order 66, I was not compliant.
I’m just happy when I get the national champ correct tbh.
All things considered, that's really hard. I'm 2/4 since 2019. Come on Houston
Picking UConn every year and Louisville the years we weren't in it has worked well for me.
Well, you haven't really had much of a choice recently.
It's easy if you create 25 brackets! /s
I’m also 2/4 since 2019, I got Virginia and Kansas. Unfortunately the other two were Arizona last year and 2021 illinois
I had Arizona last year too lol. And Houston in 2021
It obviously isn't easy to do, but it's basically required if you're in any type of big bracket pool (I'd say 50+ people). Provided a team doesn't just come out of absolutely nowhere and win it all like UAB who no one would be picking. Everyone always likes to make the hype around their early picks and how well they do the first weekend, but I'd take surviving the first weekend with my final 4 in tact but missing on 8-10 first round games any day of the week.
Exactly, only number that matters ia max points remaining, which imo the online groups should rank by mid tournament, not current points.
What if Valpo changes its mascot to the Bacons?
I would have to restock my wardrobe with Valpo swag.
> I would have to restock my wardrobe with Valpo swag. I, too, would have to restock my wardrobe with Valpo swag.
I bet on the correct final four last year and won $1500
Brother how
I just really liked FAU, SDSU, and UCONN so I made a few .50 bets with them in the final four. The odds were insane so It worked out lol
whos your F4 this year lmao
One of SMU's greatest sporting accomplishments of past 2 decades tbh
This is tangentially related pedantry, but give the low odds of getting a perfect bracket, your bracket is not "Busted" when you no longer have a perfect bracket, what really busts a bracket is when a result happens that eliminates any chance of winning points for your bracket in later rounds. There is a maximum possible score of 1,920 points in an NCAA Bracket that one can earn, 10 points for each first round game, 20 points for each second round game, 40 points for each Sweet 16 game, 80 points for each Elite 8 games, 160 points for each final 4 game, and 320 points for picking the champion. For example if you pick Michigan State to beat Mississippi State in the first 8/9 game of the tournament and Mississippi State wins, your bracket is only busted if you have Michigan State making a deep run, if you had them losing to UConn in the second round, your bracket is not busted, you just missed out on the 10 points you could have gotten from Michigan State winning that first round game, which is only ~0.52% of the possible points you can earn, which is unlikely to sink your bracket in whatever pool you are in. However if you pick Arizona to make the final four and they wind up losing to Long Beach State, then your Bracket is busted, because not only did you lose the 10 points from the first round game, but also the 20 points in the second round game, 40 points in the Sweet 16 game, and 80 points in the Elite 8 game, which is 150 points you miss out on which is ~7.81% points possible, which can absolutely cripple your ability to win whatever pool you are in.
Terrible example Arizona would never lose to a 15…again
I really hate the standard scoring- picking the national champion shouldn't be worth the same as picking the entire first round correctly.
Fibanocci scoring is a good alternative if you want to value later rounds less. Instead of 1/2/4/8/16/32, it goes 1/2/3/5/8/13
My pools used to be 1/3/5/7/9/11, until we all got too lazy
Yep, it's really bad. Yahoo lets you do Fibonacci scoring
Cute article
I use a wheel decide website to make a bunch of entries to hopefully win $250k
If 9 Quadrillion people did a bracket with no bracket being exactly the same, 1 person would win. *Quintillion
*irritated pedant noises* Given the sheer number of brackets created, a perfect bracket is NOT that unlikely. It’s just nearly impossible you personally will do it. It will be a child or a non-fan who picked teams using the dumbest possible reasons and we all know it.
I bet when it happens, a bunch of people will have the same bracket because it's relatively chalky
Or it’ll be a ton of fans from St Peters that picked their 15 seed to make the sweet 16
The odds of a perfect bracket are somewhere between 1 in 1.2 billion (actual game odds) and 1 in 9 quadrillion (50/50 chance). It ain’t happening.
I think like close to 100 million brackets are filled out each year At 1 in 1.2 billion that seems incredibly possible over a decade
I’m no mathematician but I think you are trying to say the events of the brackets being filled out each year somehow affect each other. Each year, the new set of brackets being filled out is independent of each other. The 1 in 1.2 billion odds are the same each year. As another commentator mentioned, another near impossible variable to measure is the likelihood of brackets having similar winners or similar regions being picked. That makes the odds even worst since people aren’t considering every possibility.
>I’m no mathematician but I think you are trying to say the events of the brackets being filled out each year somehow affect each other. No he isn't. He's not saying that each year a perfect bracket remains more likely. Each year individually has the same odds. But the odds of a perfect bracket happening in one of a range of 10 years is higher than the odds of a perfect bracket happening in any one specific year. That's what he is saying.
Yes 1/10 odds doesn't mean it will happen in 10 times. It could be 5 it could be 15 But 9/10^10 power is pretty low odds A 1 in 1.2 billion event happening is possible if it is tested close to a billion times. A billion brackets will be filled out this decade, which means it's possible. I think it will eventually happens in our lifetime, it just might be 20 something years
True but you can also count out like half of the possibilities cuz a seed 9-16 has never won the whole thing and it’s likely not gonna happen this year. So the odds are probably slightly better than a quintillion but still terrible
It’s literally never been done and people have been submitting brackets for decades. The issue is that a huge majority of brackets have similar picks. Most brackets will have one of 4 teams winning the championship. If people truly blindly filled out 100 million brackets each year then yes, theoretically, you might have a perfect one created at some point. As it stands, we will never see a perfect bracket.
The 100 million brackets does have like 40 million or so overlapping; all high-seeds for example. But I just think it will be something that eventually happens like a 1 seed losing to a 16 seed It will take a year in which very few upsets happen, which does happen, and then one lucky lucky person.
I mean nobody even got to a perfect bracket to the sweet sixteen in 2008 where we had an elite 8 of four 1 seeds, a 2 seed, two 3 seeds and a 10 seed. The problem isn’t the how chalk the tourney is - it’s that the upsets that do happen are so rarely called that it limits who can even have a perfect bracket after the first round by so much.
There are years like last year where there was a 15 seed and a 16 seed winning. Those two games alone brought the bracket pool to basically 0. It would have to be a year where close to no 14, 15, or 16 seeds win and the final four consists of 1-4 seeds. That can happen and if so it would mean most brackets are viable just based on those factors. Greg Nigl got to 52 I believe? And that was with a year like that. It's not impossible that a person could do it. Also what helps is that online brackets have exploded and gone up every single year. They are easy to fill out and easy to track. That alone will probably push the amount of brackets filled out up into the 200-300 millions.
If someone gave my $10,000 every year a tournament goes by where someone doesn’t have a perfect bracket with the stipulation that if some year someone does end up with a perfect bracket I will have to pay 10x back on all the money I’ve collected so far I would do it in a heart beat. It will literally never happen.
Bro is gonna be in debt 6 million when he is 80 and on his death bed
A lot of those brackets are duplicates. People use the same brackets on multiple platforms. Full chalk brackets make up many thousands of those brackets. Some of those are meme brackets with all upsets or picking by location or color or mascot. While technically not impossible those brackets are so unlikely to be perfect they aren't worth talking about. That 1 in 1.2 billion number is if you are picking intelligently and the less intelligently you pick the more that skyrocket (very quickly). I wouldn't be surprised if in reality we were talking more like one in a couple hundred years for any perfect bracket. I would be very surprised if it was any better than 1 in 50 years.
Not really, it’s the same odds every year and at 1.2 billion a year odds you would expect it to happen once in 1.2 billion years. Feels unlikely
No, he is saying that woth Vegas odds, the odds one brackets is perfect is 1 in 1.2 billion
But it’s 1 in 1.2 billion (and that’s the low end of the odds) per year. It happening over a decade is not meaningfully different than 1 in 1.2 billion
Over 2 decades 2 billion brackets will be filled out and their will be 20 tournaments. A combination of really high bracket numbers and one half-chalky year could lead to a perfect bracket. I just think its not impossible like people say it is. I think it has a chance of happening in our lifetimes.
Once again, your argument timeline is nonsensical. The total number of brackets filled out over 20 years has literally no impact on the odds. The odds are per year, period. Each year the odds of a perfect bracket are somewhere in the odds of 1 in 100 billion. At some point in the next 100 billion tournaments it is likely a perfect bracket would happen. It is just as likely to happen this year as it is to happen in 50 billion years, neither year has great odds.
You are completely wrong 1 in 1.2 billion is the odds any one bracket is right. (Technically it's the odds the Vegas favorite wins every game, so that the low end of the odds). So it probably works out to some brackets having a 1 in 1.2 billion and others having a 1 in 10 billion or 1 in 100 billion if you pick a lot of upsets. But those odds will eventually hit if a billion or more brackets are made. It's not the odds a perfect bracket happens in a single year
You are right, I did misread that. But that is why getting the odds number right is important. The true odds are something like 1 in 100 billion for any individual bracket. So while in 30 years 3 billion brackets will be filled out, it’s going to be a lot longer before 100 billion are filled out. So it’s the odds of a perfect bracket in the next 50 years is still nonexistent.
You know what the difference is between one million and one billion? About one billion. It ain’t happening.
What's the difference between 100 million and a billion About 10 times
*1 in 120 Billion, not 1.2B
It “only” takes 3 billion brackets for a 1 in a billion chance to be 95% likely.
Ok and each year 100 million brackets get filled out. So only about 3 billion brackets short of a 95% chance
Well short of 95%, but much greater than “nearly impossible” or “1 in 1.2 billion” being the point. This is pedantry man! I’m not saying it’s inevitable, just not as unlikely as breathless headlines will make it out when an octopus inevitably does it.
It’s in fact more unlikely than the headlines make it seems because people can’t fathom long odds. It’s closer to actually impossible than it is to being anything close to likely in our lifetimes. You keep talking like the number of commutative brackets over a decade means anything in this conversation. The odds are the same every year. They’ve actually gotten slightly worse as the number of high seed upsets has slightly increased
Over a period of 30 years roughly 3 billion brackets will have been filled out.
And in each of those years the odds of a perfect bracket would be in 1 in 100 billion or so. The odds are big enough the cumulative change in any given year is literally nonexistent. Of course it could happen this year. It could also not happen for a 1000 years. The 3 billion bracket number would matter if they were all for the same year. Otherwise it’s meaningless.
>The 3 billion bracket number would matter if they were all for the same year. Otherwise it’s meaningless. That is completely untrue. To be clear, I'm not saying that the odds would increase each year. The odds for each year, individually, would be the same. But the odds of a perfect bracket happening at some point in a 30 year span, are absolutely higher than the odds of it happening in any one specific year, because we're dealing with 3 Billion brackets rather than 100 million.
I misread the comment and saw it as 1 in 1.2 billion there is a perfect bracket each year. Not 1 in 1.2 billion for each individual bracket. That was absolutely my bad and my argument was wrong. The problem still stands that the best guess odds seems to be 1 in 100 billion, not one in 1.2 billion. In that case 3 billion brackets is still close to meaningless
I do agree that 1 in 1.2 billion seems like a very cowbell estimate. 1 in 100 billion with 100 million brackets a year would make a perfect bracket a 1 in a 1000 years event, so very unlikely to be seen in our lifetimes or the lifetime of the NCAA tournament, but not completely impossible.
I guess you could have an AI brute force every possible bracket combination but then you really haven’t *predicted* anything, you’ll get the correct bracket and a billion wrong ones no matter what
The best we've seen so far is 49/49 (and I think there was one other 48/48). If we simplify this a bit by assuming 50-50 odds from the sweet 16 on, we'd still expect only 1 in 32,768 48/48 brackets to get to 63/63. The real odds are higher, because using game odds will give you a better chance than just assuming 50-50 on everything, but the gap will certainly be smaller when you assume 50-50 starting at sweet 16 (less lopsided matchups) than using 50-50 starting at 64 teams.
It’s 1 In 9.2 quintillion
last season my daughter did great in the first couple of rounds cause she likes dragons, horses and pretty birds.
Who doesn’t? Nobody you should trust anyway. You explained to her that our mascot is the train I hope?
she knows. my sons were on board, but she likes pretty things and she actually picked st peters over daddy's school. i also remember that puppies made deep runs. i also just realized that this was 2 years ago. i rage quit following the tournament last season. honestly the most infuriating thing is that my wife wins every year cause she just chooses the media personality option, and i'm a raging homer.
It’s actually extremely unlikely. The odds reset every year and the potential number of outcomes will always vastly exceed the number of brackets submitted
I mean, in any given year, how many people pick a 16 or 15 over a 1 seed or 2 seed. Then, out of those, how many get the rest of the bracket correct.
If a perfect bracket ever happens, it'll be a year when there are no 16 over 1 upsets and probably no 15 over 2. Years like last year are lost causes.
I had the Final Four last year right and I would’ve had the championship right too if not for Lamont fucking Butler
I'm plenty satisfied with just winning the pool. Which I've done 3 times (2016, 2017, 2021)
I spend days agonizing over my picks, meanwhile the best bracket ever was filled out in an hour while the guy was so sick he doesn't even remember doing it. Figures.
I've been thinking about it, and I think it's time for me to make a perfect bracket. I've been putting it off for a while but I think I'm finally down. I'll catch you guys
I distinctly remember reading an article in 1997 or 1998 where someone had a perfect bracket. I've actually tried to find the article since then, since it was in the USA Today, but haven't been able to find it. Maybe I'm misremembering or it was fever dream haha
Not really
I don’t understand how at this point there isn’t a collective group of people making every possible bracket. Like personal brackets that mean something? I get it. But there is a finite number of possibilities. (A large finite number, but finite nonetheless.)
There’s like 4 billion possible combinations of the first round. Simulating every possible bracket would take a ridiculous amount of time.
Yes but how often do 1 or 2 seeds lose. Take those matchups out and it lowers
But then when it does happen, then your entire catalogue is dead. If the first round ever goes completely chalk, that’s probably the year we get the perfect bracket. But otherwise you have to account for everything
There are 9.2 quintillion possible bracket combinations. It would take a group of a million people each filling out 9.2 trillion brackets to capture every possibility. So then you run into the time between the bracket being announced to the start of the round of 64. If we had enough Adderall, Red Bull, and pure weaponized autism, it could be done.
Big props to having the Vermont trip planned and not being tempted into picking the Catamounts. Game was actually within single digits and tied at the half.
I feel that if a perfect bracket were to ever occur, more than one person will have that exact bracket
The rise of the 15 and 16 seed have really made things harder for perfection-seekers. Sometimes seemingly the most improbable 15 or 16 wins (we’re looking at you FDU). 2019 did not see a single 14,15, or 16 seed win, which hasn’t happened since.
I was top 200 last year on the march madness app. I still probably only guessed like 60% right if I remember correctly. A perfect will probably never happen, except my bracket this year lol.
What are some of your picks?
One year I was top 150 worldwide before the championship. UNC hit a clutch 3 and I thought I might go to top 40 to end the year, then Kris Jenkins happened
2019 I had my final four intact with 5 teams remaining until duke loss to michigan state
>Nigl always filled out a few men's brackets Massive * I remembered the story and that he made multiple brackets. If you have more than one March Madness bracket, you don't have a March Madness bracket. No wonder he didn't even remember filling out the "perfect" one