KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — If you, like millions of other Americans, are preparing your March Madness brackets this week, Melissa Bowers might be able to help.
She can't tell you the perfect bracket, though, because there are roughly 9,200,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations. That's a 1 in 9.2 quintillion chance of picking the perfect bracket!
But the director of the University of Tennessee's Business Analytics program can tell you the odds a number two seed like the Vols will win it all.
"We use some form of what we call predictive analytics to make a prediction about the future based on past information," she said.
Bowers has crunched the numbers from all the tournaments since 1985 to determine the odds the Vols will go all the way.
The chance they'll squeeze out a win against Colgate and dribble to the Sweet 16 are good.
"A No. 2 seed has about a 62 percent chance of making it to the Sweet 16, which is very good, very good odds," Bowers said.
But to keep up the madness and march to the Final Four is no free throw.
"A No. 2 seed has about a 21 percent chance of making it to the Final Four," she said.
Once the team gets there, winning it all depends on who else is on the court.
"If the Vols make it to the Final Four as a No. 2 seed, and there are three No. 1 seeds in the Final Four, the Vols have a 21 percent chance of winning the Final Four or winning it all," she said.
"If there are two No. 1 seeds in the Final Four, the probability of a lower seed like the Vols winning is about 31 percent and if there’s only one No. 1 seed in the Final Four, the probability of the lower seed winning is about 42 percent."
Follow all that?
Basically, if fewer No. 1 seeds make it, a lower seed is less likely to be knocked out. That logic is pretty easy to follow!
As for who Bowers has winning it all?
"You can't measure heart, tenacity, determination with statistics, and the Vols have that and have shown that all year," she said.
All the math in the world can't beat Big Orange spirit.
Bowers explains the math:
She emailed us more information as well:
Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, a No. 2 seed has won 5 times, for about 15 percent.
No. 2 seeds have about a 62 percent chance of making the Sweet 16 and about a 21 percent shot at reaching the Final Four.
If three top seeds make it the Final Four, the odds of the lower seed team, such as the Vols, winning is about 21 percent.
If two top seeds make it to the Final Four, the probability of a lower seed winning is about 31 percent.
If there’s only one No. 1 seed left standing? The probability of a lower seed winning, such as the Vols, is about 42 percent.