Education

The Biggest March Madness Upset Yet

By Bryan Toporek — March 25, 2010 1 min read
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While the likes of Ohio University, Northern Iowa, and St. Mary’s probably sent your NCAA tournament bracket up in flames, you might find some solace in the news that an autistic 17-year-old from Chicago saw it all coming and picked every single game of March Madness’ first weekend correctly.

Yes, Alex Hermann defeated the 1:13,460,000 odds this past weekend by correctly picking the winners of all 48 games in the NCAA tournament’s first weekend, according to NBCChicago.com.

Hermann, with the help of his older brother Andrew, entered his bracket on CBSSports.com’s Bracket Manager before the start of the tournament; after a first weekend chock full of upsets, Hermann’s bracket remained unscathed.

“I checked his bracket and it was off the chart,” Andrew said. “I thought it was a big deal.”

At ESPN.com, approximately 4.78 million people participated in their NCAA tournament challenge, but there’s not a single perfect bracket left.

How can Alex explain his absurdly great decision-making?

“I’m good at math,” Alex said. “I’m kind of good at math and at stats I see on TV during the game.”

If only it were that easy for the rest of us, Alex.

Check out his bracket here.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Web Watch blog.