NCAA tournament: One perfect bracket remains after the first 48 games
The first weekend of the NCAA tournament is in the books. And after 48 games over four days, only one person out of the millions who have filled out their March Madness brackets remains perfect, according to NCAA.com.
The website has tracked tens of millions of online brackets — including their own, ESPN, Yahoo, Fox and Sports Illustrated — in the last four years. For the first time in that stretch, someone has made it to the Sweet 16 with an unblemished bracket.
That’s really tough to do. As a point of reference, NCAA.com reports that the odds of correctly predicting 48 straight coin tosses are about one in 281.5 trillion.
The fan who pulled it off called their bracket “Center Road,” which was submitted through NCAA.com. The identity of the person behind the bracket is unknown.
Going into Sunday’s games, another bracket, “Court Stormers” on Yahoo, had also gotten each of the first 40 games of the tournament correct. A scary moment for both Sunday came when Central Florida nearly toppled Duke, but the Blue Devils persevered and so did the two spotless brackets.
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The only difference between the two perfect brackets’ predictions for the day was the outcome of the Texas Tech-Buffalo game. Once Texas Tech pulled away for a 78-58 win, “Center Road” was alone at the top. That bracket’s perfection was challenged one more time Sunday night, when UC Irvine scored the first 14 points of the second half against Oregon to take a two-point lead. But the Ducks prevailed 73-54, marking a pristine opening weekend for “Center Road.”
That bracket goes on to predict Duke, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky (all top-two seeds) moving on to the Elite Eight; then Duke, Gonzaga, Virginia and Kentucky (all No. 1 seeds, except for Kentucky) advancing to the Final Four; and Gonzaga beating Kentucky for the national championship.
Of course, the odds of all that happening to give “Center Road” one shining moment of its own are something like one in 9.2 quintillion. So good luck with that.
Twitter: @chewkiii
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