March madness math calculations

[Bass Man Bruce]

My wife, daughter and I were watching the games this weekend and got to talking about filling out the "perfect bracket". We figured there had to be a thousand or so possible permutations. We started doing some math and it looked a little low, so I called my son who's pretty good at math and he says since there are 32 games in the first round and each game is "heads or tales" the answer is 2 to the 32nd! With a "play in" game that doubles the outcome, it turns out there are 8.6 billion possible ways to fill out the bracket!!!!
Bracketology is harder than rocket science!

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: March madness math calculations

Well...... yes and no. The math end is correct but the single thing that figures in is people. ie... star player gets hurt.... fouls out

That is what keeps the book makers on the winning edge.

What a great exercise to do with the kids and math!