[26 Year Gap]

[QUOTE=MD Longhorn;885403]I've seen this math before, and honestly, it's quite inflated. Statistics classes in me coming back to mind...

The assumption there is that each game has exactly a 50% chance of hitting either result. But that's not true at all. Take the 1-seed vs 16-seed games as the extreme example. I suppose the chance of a 1 seed losing is not exactly zero, but it's damn close. Take as a given (near 100%) that the picker will pick 4 1-seeds to win, and 4 1-seeds do actually win, your odds of a perfect bracket become 16 times greater ... a mere 576.46 quadrillion to 1.

For each set of matchups, the odds are not 50-50, and for each of those that are not, if you also assume that the picking people mirror somewhat the actual odds (and not 50-50), the odds of the overall package improve.

(For an example of that, consider 4 games with 75% odds, say, 4 4-13 matchups:

The odds of getting these 4 correct are not 1 in 2^4 (1/16 = 6.25%) but rather 15.2587891%. 2.44 times greater than expected. Those 4 games change the overall odds to (just) 236.25 quadrillion.)

Do that for each round of matchups, and the odds of a perfect bracket are actually MUCH greater than 9 quintillion.[/QUOTE]

Senator Everett Dirksen would have been proud.