Good news: Your odds of finishing with a perfect NCAA men’s tournament bracket are far better than last year. If you follow FiveThirtyEight’s March Madness predictions in every game, you’ll have a 1 in 1,610,543,269 chance of calling every game right.
That’s barely worse than a billion-to-one against! Last year, the chances were 1 in 7,419,071,319 — almost five times worse. Why is this year’s so much easier? The 2015 men’s bracket is more top-heavy — the best teams are better, the mediocre teams are worse, and it’s not quite as hard to tell them apart.
The game-by-game probabilities are below. We don’t count the four “play-in” games in Dayton, Ohio — if we did, your chances would be zero because Manhattan already lost to Hampton, the underdog according to the FiveThirtyEight model.
A 1 in 1,610,543,269 chance is way better than having no chance at all. Pretty smart of that Warren Buffett guy to discontinue his billion-dollar bracket challenge.
Check out FiveThirtyEight’s March Madness predictions.
