The Unforgiving Nature of March Madness: Less Than 0.01% of Brackets Survive the First Day’s Shocks
The spirit of hope remains strong among March Madness bracket enthusiasts, despite the grim reality that over 99% of fans were dealt a devastating blow following the unexpected losses suffered by No. 3 seed Kentucky and No. 8 seed Mississippi State on the first day of the men’s tournament.
According to official reports, merely 0.00038% of all brackets in the men’s tournament are still intact. This disheartening statistic holds true across various platforms, with Yahoo reporting that only 116 perfect brackets remain on their Website. ESPN, on the other hand, confirmed that over 22 million brackets were shattered, leaving a mere 1,825 perfect ones standing tall.
Among these fortunate few with a chance of achieving bracket perfection is none other than Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson. The NCAA’s X – formerly known as Twitter – account recognized Robinson for his impressive rookie season in the NFL and his potential to make March Madness history. “Perfect day 1 haha kinda dope,” Robinson replied, acknowledging the challenge that lies ahead as he strives for bracket immortality.
Achieving a perfect March Madness bracket remains one of the last unclaimed achievements in sports, requiring an intriguing mix of both luck and skill to accurately predict all 63 games. In a tournament renowned for upsets and Cinderella stories, the odds of getting every result correct are an astronomical one in nine quintillion – that’s a nine followed by 18 zeroes.
To put these numbers into perspective, mathematics professor Tim Chartier, distinguished visiting professor at the US National Museum of Mathematics and Joseph R. Morton professor of mathematics and computer science at Davidson College, likened it to picking a specific second in 292 billion years. If you’re finding it challenging to grasp the sheer enormity of these odds, Chartier proposes visualizing nine quintillion dollar bills stacked on top of one another – a staggering height equivalent to traveling from Earth to Pluto approximately 60 times.
