M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Madness

The opening weekend of the men's tournament isn't even over yet and my bracket is mostly ruined.  Kansas and Oklahoma State going out early killed me, and the Syracuse and Duke losses didn't help either.  I filled out two brackets, one for one of the offices I work for, the other for a competition with Sarah.  In my office bracket I had Kansas winning the entire tournament (stupid, stupid, stupid - They always win the Big XII then choke once they get to the big dance.).  I have Michigan State winning it in my bracket with Sarah.  So far Sarah and I are mostly even, though a couple of my losses (Kansas and Oklahoma State) I had going far into the tournament and most of Sarah's losses I don't think will impact her as much. 

It is impossible to predict this tournament.  I think usually the better teams go on to win, but who honestly picked Mercer to beat Duke?  Even if you did predict that upset (probably only Mercer fans did) it was a lucky guess more than a real prediction based on facts.  Before the tournament started with all of the talk around the Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge, I googled the odds of correctly filling out the entire bracket.  The number I continued to run across was 1 in 9.2 quintrillion.  This comes from the fact that there are 64 teams in the tournament (not counting the play in games) and since the final team can't play itself, there are 63 possible winners.  If you take 2 to the 63rd power you get 9.2 quintrillion.  I really think this is a quite crude estimate and isn't even remotely close to the real odds.  I briefly tried to come up with an equation to better predict the odds but ran out of time before my next patient arrived.  Suffice it to say that while I think 9.2 quintrillion is a bit high, the odds are still very much in the favor of Warren Buffett.  This highly unpredictable nature is what makes this tournament so great.  Except for now on I think I'm going to start picking who I want to win instead of who I think should win.  Or maybe I'll go with the coolest mascots or prettiest cheerleaders.