The NCAA division one men’s basketball tournament is famous for Cinderella teams marching through the brackets. But the absence of huge surprises this year—beyond the ousting of top seeded Kansas—perhaps best explains why nearly 200,000 online sports fans correctly predicted the Final Four teams vying for the championship this weekend on CBS.
CBS.sportsline.com says about 9% of the 2.3 million people who filled out the online brackets got the slate right.
That is a stark difference from last year when, out of approximately 2 million fans who made their online picks, nobody was right on the last four, according to CBS.sportline.
Then again, 2006 was the year George Mason, the commuter college in the Washington suburbs, crashed the party, making it to the Final Four. Mason became the front page story of the tournament, although the team wasn’t a surprise to everyone: Some 539 people picked them for the final March Madness weekend last year.
Whichever team wins this year, the number of CBS sports fans celebrating will be in the five figures. Of the 200,000 who chose all four, 36% picked Florida to go all the way; 32% Ohio State; 21% Georgetown; and 11% UCLA.
