Besides actually watching the NCAA’s March Madness, a large aspect to the tournament is creating brackets. People all around the nation, of all ages, create brackets to see if they can be the one out of millions of others to predict the outcomes of the upcoming games. As of right now, in the 2019 tournament, there is only one perfect bracket left.
How does the bracket-making process work?
At the end of the regular season, a Selecting Committee seed all of the teams based on their skill level. This committee consists of 10 members which include school and conference administrators. First, there is the region seed which is given based on one of the four regions in the United States: East, Midwest, West, and South. This ranking goes from 1 (highest) through 16 (lowest). Then there is the overall seed which ranks every team in the tournament from 1 through 68. This process is used to help with deciding which region each team belongs in, for fairness.
Has anyone ever gotten a perfect bracket?
No one has ever gotten a perfect bracket in the history of its existence. Up until this year, the closest someone has come to having a perfect bracket was a 17 year old boy who had everything correct up until the Sweet Sixteen of the tournament. This year, a man by the name of Gregg Nigl is still going strong into the Sweet Sixteen. He is the first and only person to ever get this far in the history of brackets in March Madness.
NCAA Bracket Bets
Although the chances of making a perfect bracket are so slim, it’s almost impossible, people still make bets. A recent poll was taken and the results show that 47 million Americans have placed bets for this year’s March Madness tournament. Most people have Duke winning the whole thing. The total amount of money being used for bets comes to a total of about $8.5 billion.