Odds in March Madness

Well the Final Four have been chosen. There are no #1 or #2 seeds left. Only 2 teams were part of the original top (sweet?) sixteen. Seems quite unprecedented. What are the odds of no #1 or #2 seeds being present at the Final Four? We are assuming a Fox News 64 team selection to begin with! (Fair and balanced!)

Quote: DeMango

Well the Final Four have been chosen. There are no #1 or #2 seeds left. Only 2 teams were part of the original top (sweet?) sixteen. Seems quite unprecedented. What are the odds of no #1 or #2 seeds being present at the Final Four? We are assuming a Fox News 64 team selection to begin with! (Fair and balanced!)

There can be no exact answer, of course. However, if you were ever going to pick a year that it would happen, this was the year to do so. There were no teams that stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Pittsburgh as a number 1 seed showed how balanced the field was. That being said, having none of the top 8 teams make it, with them all essentially getting an easy first round game, is highly unlikely. I would guess the odds of no 1 or 2 making the final 4 this year before the tourney started at at least 50 - 1. In other years with stronger number 1s it was probably in the hundreds to 1 against. In my brackets I picked an 11 and an 8 to go to the final 4....... just not the 2 that made it.

It has been a very memorable year, not so much that the number ones got knocked off, but that Butler or VCU will play in the championship game. Each were 200-1 "field" shots to win the championship before the tournament started.

Quote: LVRJ Article

According to RJ Bell of Pregame.com, the odds against VCU winning all five games was 1,371-1.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci

Over 5.9 million people made there picks for the final four in the ESPN tournament challenge. TWO people had it right. At first I was surprised that two people had it right because it looked closed to impossibe to pick. After thinking about it for a while, I'm now surprised that only two people had it right. That sure is a lot of people.

TV-alert...
Tonight at 9:00pm Eastern. (Yeah, I give really great advance notice)!!

Frontline on the PBS network will have a brief segment on the NCAA and commercialization of March Madness. Looks like it will run about fifteen minutes of an hour long show.