A mathematician unpacks the science of “bracketology”

March Madness is upon us yet again as the NCAA basketball tournament kicks off in earnest: 68 teams facing off in a series of matchups until only one champion is left standing. Millions of sports fans take part by creating their own bracket predictions. The challenge is that there are so many variables and potential outcomes, it's almost impossible to devise the perfect bracket, correctly calling the outcome of every matchup. Online advice abounds, from amateur enthusiasts to professional sports analysts at media giants. (CBS Sportsline's bracket projection model, for instance, simulates every game in the tournament 10,000 times to optimize the accuracy of their predictions.)

But what if you're just looking to, say, beat the office pool, or you don't want to simply blindly follow the seedings or predictions of those elaborate models? What simpler strategies might one employ to gain an edge in a crowded field? Albert Cohen of Michigan State University, who specializes in statistics and actuarial science, including sports analytics, isn't a gambler himself. (Someone who "looks at life based on risk" is understandably rather risk-averse when it comes to gambling.) But he did offer Ars some insight into the science of "bracketology," along with a few handy general tips.

Ars Technica: There are so many different possible brackets. What are the actual odds of someone picking the perfect one?

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