The Perfect March Madness Perfect Bracket; 1 in 9.2 quintillion?
1 in 9.2 quintillion or 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,777,808 to be exact. That number is stated a lot as the probability to submit a perfect NCAA March Madness bracket. That number is highly inflated. It assumes that each game has a 50-50 chance of outcome. Maybe that is close to true for the #8 vs #9 match up. But the further spread in seeding the more the probability shifts towards the better ranked team. For example, a #1 seed is much better than a 50-50 chance of winning vs the #16 seed. However when you account for the true probabilities of lower seeds beating higher seeds, the odds lower to 1 in 128 billion (as per Jeff Bergen). That means if every person in the world (7.1 billion people) submitted 18 completely different bracket someone would likely get the perfect bracket.
1 in 128,000,000,000. "So your saying there's a chance!"
SPORTS ODDS
Patriots 25 point comeback vs Atlanta (it happened) | 1 in 630 |
Odds of an American High School Athlete going pro in (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, Soccer) (it happens) | 1 in 2200 |
Leicester City winning the English Premier League 2016 soccer championship (it happened) | 1 in 5,000 |
Correctly picking 16 NFL games vs the spread (16 team parlay) (it happens) | 1 in 45,000 |
Tatis 2 Grand Slams in one inning (it happened) | 1 in 6,500,000,000 |
Having a Perfect NCAA March Madness Bracket (one day...) | 1 in 128,000,000,000 |
For those who don't know, Tatis is the only player in MLB history to hit 2 Grand Slams in 1 inning. Through the 1999 season in which Tatis achieved this amazing feet, there had been ~170,000 major league games (from 1876). Just to have the opportunity to hit 2 Grand Slams in 1 inning the following events had to happen (the individual odds are specific because a double instead of a single would ruin the opportunity for the Grand Slam)...
Batter | Player | Result | Individual Odds | Cumulative odds |
1 | Bragg | Single | 29.54% | 29.54% |
2 | Renteria | Walk | 25.27% | 7.46% |
3 | McGuire | Single | 28.90% | 2.16% |
4 | Tatis | HR | 5.32% | 0.115% |
5 | Drew | Out | 67.67% | 0.0777% |
6 | Marrero | HR | 1.75% | 0.00136% |
7 | Polanco | Walk | 26.25% | 0.000357% |
8 | McEwing | Walk | 24.52% | 0.0000874% |
9 | Jimenez | Single | 7.27% | 0.00000636% |
10 | Bragg | Walk | 29.54% | 0.00000188% |
11 | Renteria | Single | 25.27% | 0.000000475% |
12 | McGuire | Out | 57.94% | 0.000000275% |
13 | Tatis | HR | 5.32% | 0.0000000146% = 1 in 6.85Billion |
But you know what...throw away the odds...because this year we saw...
100 year old curse broken (Cubs win the World Series)
Arguably the greatest comeback in sports history (Patriots 25 pt 3rd quarter deficit in the Superbowl)
Leicester City (5000-1 preseason underdogs) won the English Premier League (in Soccer)
Cleveland Cavaliers come back from a 1-3 NBA Finals hole (to beat a 73 win Warriors team)
A year of improbabilities ending with a perfect bracket?...
