NCAA Basketball March Madness is back. After being canceled last year, NCAA basketball Blue Bloods and smaller programs are ready to make their mark on this year’s March Madness tournament. 

A total of 68 teams will participate in NCAA Tournament 2021. There are so many printable brackets out there in the public domain. You should also try to win your bracket pool, but before you proceed, we recommend you read out the opening lines and look into the 32 games before taking up major decisions. 

Gonzaga has been one of the best teams all season. The Zags have been an exceptional program this season with consistent performance in hopes of a perfect season. Gonzaga has maintained a strong defensive approach and an powerful offensive attack that has propelled them into the Sweet 16. On the other hand, Illinois was another another great team but didn’t live up to their #1 seed and ended up being upset in the second round of the tournament.

NCAA Bracket and Odds of Probability

Winning your office pool isn’t easy and nailing a perfect NCAA bracket is nearly impossible. We’ve discussed the odds of choosing the perfect March Madness bracket in previous articles, but it’s worth going over again how highly unlikely it is that someone will exactly predict the correct outcome of every game in the NCAA tournament (men’s or women’s) to give you a sense of how erratic the tournament can get. 

Predicting the correct outcomes of all 63 games is close to 0. No one has ever successfully proven to have predicted every game and come out with a perfect bracket. Statistically, it could potentially happen but the chances are slimmer than getting hit by lightning or winning the lottery.  

Last year, the NCAA came out with an interesting revelation. It analyzed all data of the Bracket Challenge Game. Also, the NCAA made use of the feedback and opinion of the participants.  After that, it is estimated that the actual probability of picking out the correct bracket comes close to 1 in 120-billion participants. However, it’s unrealistic per se. 

Why Predicting A Perfect Bracket Is Not Possible? 

Though these probabilities still have some chance of becoming real—a participant drawing a perfect NCAA bracket is almost nil. 

• Only one player representing his high school team goes on to become an NBA player.
• Only one person per 850,000+ people in Canada is a billionaire.
• Only one person out of 100,000+ may get struck by lightning.
• Only one person out of 160,000+ may get hit by a meteorite.
• If you love swimming, then you may die due to a Shark attack at sea. However, the probability for the same is 1 in 8 million.
• Only 1 person can hit Lotto Max Jackpot out of 33 million

Thus, from the above, it’s clear that NCAA probability may not become true. 

You never know out of 32 matches and 68 teams, who will eventually become successful. 

The tournament is all set to start from Thursday, March 18, 2021, to April 05, 2021.  A lot of interesting results, upsets, and statistics are set to unfold before your eyes. Stay calm and enjoy the NCAA March Madness like never before.

The Conclusion

The hunt for NCAA perfect bracket is on. However, basketball fans would never forget Gregg Nigl’s astute prediction of the game. He was the one whose bracket came close to NCAA 2019 tournament’s final outcome. But his predictions got busted during the later stages of the tournament and thus he couldn’t go further with that NCAA bracket. 

New participants and freshers can get some inspiration from Gregg while chalking out their March Madness bracket strategy.  Nigl predicted the result of every single game before Tennessee lost a controversial match to Purdue 78-75 and it broke Nigl’s winning prediction streak. Still, Nigl deserves credit for his stunning observation and analytical skills. The odds of making the right prediction come down to just 1 in 17,000—Nigl did it!

Thus, nobody can predict a perfect NCAA tournament bracket. More than the stats and analytics, the very nature of each match, players’ injuries, and nail-biting finishes are enough to completely shatter one’s NCAA tournament bracket.