By: Jason Shen

March Madness is a tournament where NBA teams compete for the win. As the name suggests, the tournament is held in March. The story goes, a high school coach used the phrase during a men’s NCAA game in the 1980s, and the name stuck.

The tournament is hosted in a style where if a team loses, they are eliminated from the competition. The championship starts with 68 teams, but in just the opening round, 4 are eliminated. The remaining teams are split into 4 brackets, with each team given a number (1-16). Then, the numbers on opposite halves of the 16 are paired (1&16,2&8,…). Every year, Americans make a tradition of trying to predict who will win in the 63 games played, even though the chance to get all the winners correct is 1 in 9.2 quintillions. This is truly a competition full of “madness”.

The closest anyone has gotten to guessing the correct outcome was Gregg Nigl of Columbus, Ohio, with 49 correct predictions in 2019.