March Madness college basketball pools are fun pools that anyone can take part in, no matter their knowledge of basketball. The brackets are easy to fill out – choose a winner of each game and narrow it down to the final winner. More times than not, someone who knows nothing about college basketball will win the pool. By following a few simple rules, like never pick a 16 to beat a 1, everyone stands a chance to win their pool.
Don found a few fun facts about March Madness:
It is estimated that Americans wager approximately three billion dollars on March Madness, second only to the Super Bowl. Only a small percentage of these bets are placed legally in Vegas. Most of the bets are placed locally or online.
The chances of having a perfect bracket are one in 9.2 quintillion, according to someone who knows how to figure out statistics like that.
There will be anywhere from 2-4 billion dollars in corporate losses from employees talking about the games, using company time to work on their brackets or check on games, and streaming games on their work computers or phones.
The lowest seed to ever win a tournament was 12th seed Villanova in 1985.
An eleven seed has made the Final Four only three times! These three lucky teams were LSU in 1986, George Mason in 2006, and VCU in 2011.
Larry Brown is the only coach to ever win an NCAA and a NBA championship. He took Kansas to number one in 1988 and the Detroit Pistons to the NBA championship in 2004.
Sorry all you number five seeds – a number five has never won the tournament!
The most points ever scored by one player in a tournament game was 61 points by Austin Carr of Notre Dame in 1970.
The only time that all the number one seeds ever made it to the Final Four was in 2008.
During the tournament, pizza orders increase by almost 20 percent! Nobody has time to cook while all this madness is going on!
Today is Selection Sunday, when we find out which teams make it to the big dance. We are excited that the Kent State University Golden Flashes made it to the tournament because Don’s brother-in-law, our very cool next-door-neighbor, and one of Don’s best buddies all went to Kent State. It would be fun to see the Flashes win, but with their first game being against the NCAA giants UCLA, we won’t be choosing KSU on our brackets.