100+ million college basketball fans have been watching and betting 2011 NCAA basketball tournament games, from 68 teams down to 4. And after each round, more and more brackets are tossed into the waste basket.
Following the trends during a Tournament offers insight into how the average fan is doing with his action, and more importantly, what results the average fan will react to moving forward.
With a field of 64 teams through the championship game there are over 9.2 quintillion possible brackets.
Perfect bracket:
After 60 games, there are over 1.1 quintillion possible bracket combinations. That’s 1.1 followed by 17 zeros. That’s over 1.1 trillion times bigger than one million.
Using Las Vegas odds to determine the likelihood of each game outcome, the odds against picking all 60 winners so far is over 1.4 quadrillion to 1. That’s 1.4 followed by 14 zeros. That’s over a 1.4 billion times bigger than one million.
A picker using Vegas odds as a guide would be 823 times more likely to achieve perfection than a random guesser.
Straight Up results:
Favorites: 36 winners, 22 losers.
(two games where “pick’em” – meaning no favorite)
Double Digit Favorites are 15 winners, 1 loser.
Favorites by less than double digits are exactly 22 winners, 22 losers.
Biggest upsets:
Kansas -10.5 (lost to VCU)
Purdue -9.5 (lost VCU)
Louisville -9.5 (lost to Morehead State)
Duke -9 (lost to Arizona)
Biggest win: Duke by 42 over Hampton
16 of 60 games decided by three-points or less
28 of 60 games decided by double-digits
Against the Spread results:
Favorites: 25 winners, 31 losers, 2 pushes
(two games where “pick’em” – meaning no favorite)
Most extreme point spread results:
Michigan +1.5 covered by 31.5 points vs. Tennessee
VCU +9.5 covered by 27.5 points vs. Purdue
Arizona +9 covered by 25 points vs. Duke
VCU +5.5 covered by 23.5 points vs. Georgetown