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A reminder that the odds of a perfect March Madness bracket are mathematically absurd

You know it’s going to happen on that first day of the 2019 NCAA tournament: As soon as a game goes final that you picked the wrong side of in your bracket, you’re going to feel that sting.

There goes perfection.

And while you know that a perfect bracket is impossible, you still start to doubt yourself. Then, you lose more games and it gets worse.

So here’s what you should do: Bookmark this post and come back to it a few times. This is a look at the mathematical probabilities of a perfect bracket and other near-impossible shots at getting every single pick right.

Per the NCAA, the odds of an absolutely perfect bracket are …

1 in 9.2 quintillion, which can be written out as 1 in 9,200,000,000,000,000,000.

Yeah, not happening.

DePaul University math professor Jeff Bergen did some work and figured out it could be this:

1 in 128 billion

Duke math professor Jonathan Mattingly factored in what the average college basketball fan could do using knowledge to make picks:

1 in 2.4 trillion

Want to feel even better about your soon-to-be-imperfect bracket? Bergen help us to figure out the odds of picking all 32 games in the opening round correctly:

1 in 4,294,967,296

Still, not happening.

And to any employees at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway who think they can win $1 million a year for life thanks to a perfect Sweet 16, I’ve got news for you: The odds are, per Market Watch:

1 in 280 trillion

Good luck!

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