After just one round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Warren Buffett's Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge is officially over.
The end comes after several heartbreaking upsets trashed brackets nationwide. Even after shocking upsets from schools like North Dakota State, Dayton and, most notably, Mercer, CNN reported there were still 16 perfect brackets left in the running Friday afternoon.
But it didn't last long. By the time George Washington and Memphis faced off Friday night, only three perfect brackets remained. And, unfortunately, all those brackets had George Washington beating Memphis. Memphis won 71 to 66. (Via Yahoo)
That meant the fight for a cool $1 billion from Buffett ended before the round of 64 was even over. But were we really all that surprised?
Just before the games kicked off Thursday, The New York Times wrote that the challenge wasn't really worth anyone's time. The odds against landing the perfect bracket were roughly 9.2 quintiollion to one.
ABC reports you had a better chance at winning the Powerball three times than you did at winning the Oracle of Omaha's prize.
It was a tough fight to begin with. In the ESPN challenge, which was separate from the Billion Dollar Bracket, only 0.17 percent of competitors guessed all the games right after just the first day. (Via International Business Times)
Only about two percent correctly predicted the Duke/Mercer stunner, while fewer than 20 percent predicted the correct outcome of the Ohio State/Dayton upset.
The good news is the fight for cash isn't over quite yet. Quicken Loans is offering $100,000 prizes to the 20 participants who have the most accurate brackets by the end of the tournament.
