By: Ben Rosenzweig
The odds of picking a perfect bracket are about 1 in 9.2 quintillion. To put that into perspective, it is more likely to get struck by lightning a million times and win the powerball lottery twice than to complete a perfect bracket. And yet, here we are, crunching the numbers, praying on our 15 seed Cinderella team, and telling ourselves that this is the year we do it. Some do it based on pure stats, some on feel and hope and some literally just pick off whose mascot would win in a fight but whatever your strategy is, one thing is for certain. The madness has officially arrived.
For sports fans worldwide, March is always crossed off on their calendars. “I think it’s the best sporting event that there is,” said Ethan Tramposch. Every single year the tournament does not disappoint. Whether it is crazy upsets and Cinderella stories, March Madness is sure to ruin all hope of a perfect bracket. Ethan said, “Every year my bracket gets knocked out in the first few games, so this year I decided to just do as many brackets as I can.” And knowing the frustrating twists and turns of this tournament, he probably won’t be any more successful this year.
Every year, an early round upset happens that wipes out so many brackets. Usually, it is a 1 or 2 seed that millions of people have to go far in the tournament that gets knocked out in the round of 64 or 32, and derails all of these brackets. To see who Syosset had their brackets relying on this year, students completed a bracket and the data of each bracket was used to see who Syosset had to go far, who the Cinderella teams were, and who people had to win. In each of the 63 games, the team that had more votes in that game moved on.
The students of Syosset High school were not feeling very adventurous when they chose their brackets. The majority method helped the hypothetical final four to consist of all four 1 seeds: Duke, Florida, Michigan and Arizona. Out of that final four, students picked Duke and Arizona to face off in the championship game, where 56% of students chose Duke to win it all.
In general, the students really picked on the safe side, with the only “upsets” that they chose for the round of 64 were 8 seed vs. 9 seed games which is the least of an upset. However, that safe play worked out pretty well. Through the round of 32, the student bracket had gotten 39 out of 48 games correct which means they have an 81.25% win rate. Through this round of 32, that would put our student bracket within the top 1-2% of all brackets.
In the chaos of March Madness, people are always looking for that secret Cinderella story that no one else will choose. But as 26 million sports fans can attest to, this is really challenging. By leaning into the collective opinions of the crowd, Syosset students played it safe, but smart and the results showed. This might be a sign that the easiest way to get to the top of the leaderboard is not to outsmart your peers, but to listen to them instead.
