One of America’s biggest sporting traditions, the NCAA Division I basketball tournament, also known as March Madness is right around the corner. Starting March 18, 68 teams across the men’s and women’s games, across 32 conferences compete in a single elimination tournament for the chance to be national champions. Basketball doesn’t get more competitive than this, with Nathan Abraha describing College basketball as “more competitive than the NBA.” Even though the NBA and WNBA have much more talent, competition in the NCAA tournament involves so many levels. Senior players going all out knowing that this could be their last time playing competitive basketball, smaller college programs giving their all knowing what an opportunity they’ve put into. But also the big name players, knowing millions of eyes drawn towards them.
Two of the biggest stars heading into the mens and womens tournament are Cooper Flagg of Duke and Juju Watkins of Southern California (USC). Cooper Flagg, the freshman out of Newport, Maine, is the likely first overall pick in June’s NBA draft. But in the meantime, he is the highest scoring freshman in D-1 men’s basketball, while also leading his Duke squad to one of the favorites going into the tournament. And sophomore Juju Watkins is continuing to impress off the back of her historical freshman year last season. In the process leading her USC team to one of the better teams going into the tournament, USC having hovering in and around the top five of AP’s top 25 teams the whole season, and finally bringing some much needed good college basketball back to the West Coast.
The superstars, and tournament favorites are fun to talk about, but there are of course 68 teams in total across both men and women brackets, and 67 of those teams having to go home without lifting that prestigious championship trophy, making this tournament one of the most painful for teams and fans alike. There are tears of senior players knowing their basketball career is over and tears of fans who thought this was their year to win.
While the superstars or the winners and losers are fun to talk about, it seems every year the biggest story is the bracket. Come every March, millions of people from around the U.S. ask themselves the question: “what if I become the first person to fill out a perfect March Madness bracket?” In its 40-year history with at least 64 teams, no one has ever done it. And understandably so .
Although no one is likely to create the perfect bracket, lots of people are going to assume college basketball dynasties are on the verge of creation. With Connecticut (UCONN) on the men’s side looking to take home three titles in a row, and South Carolina looking to win three times in four years. UConn are known for their runs.
But many people go into both tournaments without knowing very much about it. 60 to 100 million brackets are created each year, and still each year we have yet to see a perfect bracket. The closest anyone has gotten was in 2019 when Ohio Native Gregg Nigl had his first 49 predictions correct. The theoretical chance of a perfect bracket is 1 in 147 quintillion, that is 147 with 18 zeros, that is if you give every team a 50% chance of winning. But many know that isn’t true, while there are upsets, many wouldn’t give a 16th seed a half chance at beating the 1st seed. So according to the NCAA, you’ve got a reasonable 1 in 120 billion chance of a perfect bracket.
So if you watch for the superstars, the fairytale runs, watch for your favorite team, or just watch until your bracket eventually breaks, we all know the one thing to expect, madness.
